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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/artmagicormundanOObrit 




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ART MAGIC; 



OK, 



MUNDANE, SUB-MUNDANE AND SUPER-MUNDANE 



SPIEITISM. 



A TREATISE 
IN THREE PARTS AND TWENTY-THREE SECTIONS: 

DESCRIPTIVE OF ART MAGIC, SPIRITISM, THE DIFFERENT ORDERS OF SPIRITS IN 
THE UNIVERSE KNOWN TO BE RELATED TO, OR IN COMMUNICATION WITH 
MAN ; TOGETHER WITH DIRECTIONS FOR INVOKING, CONTROLLING, 
AND DISCHARGING SPIRITS, AND THE USES AND ABUSES, DAN- 
GERS AND POSSIBILITIES OF MAGICAL ART. 



V 



4 







PUBLISHED BY T H K AUTHOR 

At New York, America. 
1876. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, 

By WILLIAM BRITTEN, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



Wheat & CORrrETT, 

Book anrt Job Printers, 

8 Spruce St., N. Y. 



DEDICATION. 



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j^-^-Z-t^ Mj ♦ 



Tliiiae Tae tlie gloi-y, tliine the fame ; 
TVIiiie be the censrix-e, ixiine the blame. 
If to Isinow more the M^orlci d.em.aiacls 
Let it T-ead. this— 




TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Author's Preface — Editor's Preface page 7-11 



FART I. 

SECTION I. 
Introductory. — Definitions — Matter, Force and Spirit — The Grand 
Trinity of Being page 13 

SECTION II. 
Universal Behef in the Fall of Man — Explanation of the Fall — Original 
Condition of Spirit — Pre-existence of the Soul — Its Descent into 
Matter — Spirit the Origin of Being page 19 

SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION II. 

Opinions of the Hindoos — Extracts from the Vedas— Egyptian Cosroogony 
— Opinions of the Philosophers of all Ages Concerning God — Testi- 
mony of Cahaguet's Somnambules — Hindoo Child Medium's Commu- 
nication — On Divine Cosmogony, Men, Angels, Spirits page 22 

SECTION III. 
Of Deity — Man's Incapacity to gauge the Infinite and Eternal — The 
Grand Spiritual Sun page 30 

SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION III. 
Opinions of Various Authorities Concerning the Spiritual Sun — Hindoo, 
Egyptian, Greek and Roman Theology — Mediaeval and Modern 
Opinions — Sweedenborg and Cahagnet — God no Mystery to the An- 
cients, How Known page 33 



SECTION IV. 

Of the most Aucient Worship — The Sabean System — Astronomical Reli- 
gion — Solar and Astral Gods — The History of the Sun God — His 
reappearance in every Form of Worship and Relation to Chris- 
tianity page 43 

SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION IV. 
The Various Nations that Worshipped the Sun God page 60 

SECTION V. 

Sex Worship — Its Antiquity and Meaning — The Connection of Solar, Sex 
and Serpent Worship — The Spiritual and Material Ideas of Ancient 
faiths contrasted — The Degradation and Death of Materialistic Wor- 
ship and Triumph of Spiritual page 64 

SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION V. 

How Solar and Sex Worship came to be Interblended — Origin of Serpent 
Worship — Emblems of the three Systems — Crosses — Scriptural 
Names — Nileometers — Exoteric and Esoteric Worship — A Pro- 
phecy page 75 

SECTION VI. 

Of the Subordinate Gods in the Universe — Angels — Spirits — Tutelary 
Gods — Souls and Elementaries — Jewish Cabala — Classical Authorities 
— Godwyn on the Tutelary Spirits of the Romans page 83 

SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION VI. 
Jewish Cabala — Classical Authors page 97 



PAR. Til 



SECTION VII. 



Spiritism and Magic. — Mundane, Sub-Mundane and Super-Mundane 
Spiritism — Elementaries, Human and Angelic Spirits page 102 



SECTION VIII. 

Man the Microcosm — The Trinity of Elements, Soul, Spirit, Matter — The 
Astral Fluid and Astral Spirit — The Rosicrucians — Astral Light — Fire 
Philosophers — Ancient and Modern Priests page 114 

SECTION IX. 

Ancient Priests and Prophets — Spiritual Gifts — Woman as Priestess and 
Sibyl — Classification of Spiritually Endowed Persons — Magnetizers 
and Mediums — Boundless Powers of the Human Spirit page 132 

SECTION X. 

General Summary of the Conditions and Processes of Magical 
Art '. page 1 57 

' SECTION XI. 

Magic in India — Hindoo Claims to priority — Priests^Bramins — ^Ecstatics 
^Fakeers — Initiatory Eites — Magnetism — Narcotics — Soma Drink — 
The Pitris — ^Elementaries — Magic and Spiritism page 174 

SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION XI. 

Illustrations of Magic in India — Stupendous and awful Powers of the 
Ecstatics — The Lama Bokt — The Princess Belgiojosa's Experience 
with Ecstatics — Fire-Eaters in France — Thibetian Lama — Horrible 
Rites — Ah Achmet's Mediumship — Summary page 193 

SECTION XII. 

Magic Amongst the Mongolians — Magic and Spiritism Contrasted — Trial 
of Strength and Agility by Spirits — Spirits Amongst the Karenes — 
Writing and other Kinds of Mediumship page 219 

SECTION XIII. 

Magic in Egypt — The Priests — Prophets — Modes of Initiation into the 
Mysteries page 223 

SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION XIII. 

The Great Pyramid — Its Probable Use and Object — Extracts from Stewart 
— Bishop Russell — Herodotus — The Author's Statement page 24ti 



SEC'IION XIV. 

Magic Amongst the Jews— Their Claims for Antiquity— Abraham — Moses 

—Priests and Prophets — The Cabala — Bible — Infusion of Chaldean 

and Persian Ideas — Jesus — The Essenes — Superiority of Hebrew 

Literature page 2fi0 

SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION XIY. 
The Modes of Divination, both lawful and unlawful, amongst the 
Jews - page 277 

SECTION XV. 
Magic amongst the Chaldeans — Priests — Soothsayers — Star-gazers — As- 
trologers and Astrology — Why are the Moderns Inferior to tlie An- 
cients in Spiritual Science? — Ennemoser on the Lapps and Finns — 
" Ghostland " — Siberian Schaman page 283 

SECTION XVI. 

Magic amongst the Greeks and Romans — Samothracian and Eleusinian 
Mysteries — Initiations — The Oracles — Pythia and Averuiau 
Sybils page 298 



FAR, Till. 

SECTION XVII. 
> Elementary and Planetary Spirits — Mundane, Sub-Mundaue and Super- 
Mundane Spiritism — Salamanders — Sylphs — Glnomes — Fairies — 
Kobolds — Undines, &c., &c. — Offices and Powers of the Elementaries 
— Communion — Its Uses and Dangers — Quotations from "Ghost- 
land." page 319 

SECTION XVIII. 
Spiritism and Magic in Transitional Eras — Witchcraft — Persecution by 
the Christian Church — Decadence of Spiritual Gifts — Knights Temp- 
lars — Stedinger — Alchemists — Rosicrucians — Philosophers' Stone and 
Elixir Vitse page 343 

SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION XVIII. 
Alchemists and Philosophers of the Middle Ages — Their Magical practices 
and Opinions page 356 



SECTION XIX. 
Heptameeon. — Magical Elemeuts of Peter d'Abano page 360 

SECTION XX. 
Summary of Cornelius Agrippa's Philosophy — Paracelsus — On the Magnet 
and Power of Will — Witchcraft — Its Possibilities and Fallacies — Case 
of Jane Brooks page 382 

SECTION XXI. 

Magical Elements — Various kinds of Divination — Crystal Seeing, &c., &c., 

of Stones — Cems — Colors — Sounds — Noise — Music — Rosicrucian Ideas 

of Music — The Color-Doctor — Spells — Charms — Amulets — Talismans 

—Witchcraft page 393 

SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION XXI. 

The Magic Mirror of Cahagnet — Method of making and using It — Com- 
munication from a Planetary Spirit— Formulee of Nostradamus — On 
the Invocation of Spirits — Call and Discharge for Spirits of the Crys- 
tal and Mirror page 414 

SECTION XXII. 

Magnetism — Psychology — Clairvoyance — Their Relations to Ancient Magic 
— The Great Modern Triad Paracelsus — Sweedenborg and Mesmer — 
Correspondence between Billot and Deleuze — Cahagnet's Somnam- 
bules — Modern Magic - page 424 

SECTION XXIII. 

Modern Spiritism — Its Literature — The Harmonial Philosophy and Philos- 
opher — A Sketch — Spiritual Gifts — The Decadence of Spiritisn^ and 
its causes — Its Possibilities in the Future — New School of the Pro- 
phets — ^Home-Circles — Conditions— Summary page 437 



EPILOG^UE. 
Page 465 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



The foliowmg pages were wiitten at the soHcitation of highly es- 
teemied Eax'Opean friends', who deemed that the author's long years 
of experience as a student and adept in the Spiritism of many lands 
might furnish to the world some valuable information concerning the 
rhysteries of that spiritual communion now so prevalent throughout 
the ei^dhzed world. 

In order to gratify these too partial advisers, the author at first 

collated his personal experiences into a series of autobiographical 

sketches, the few first chapters of which were pubhshed under the 

title of "Ghosti'ind; or, Researches into the Realm of Spiritual 

Existence," in Emn\a ^ Hardinge Britten's high-toned American 

Magazine, " The Western Star. " As the calamitous fires which 

d'^v'istated the city of Boston some five or six years ago caused the 

suasion of Mrs. Britten's excellent periodical, the author deter- 

mifl to lay his papers aside, for any use posterity might derive from 

the but the same friendly spirit of appreciation which had dictated 

thepanscription of the autobiography subsequently pleaded for its 

comuance, or the preparation of a still more occult work, in which 

chei.uch needed desideratum of a comprehensive philosophy, covering 

theprinciples which underhe spiritual existence should be given to 

the^vorld, as a basis on which to found the superstructure of spiritual 

science. 

Ijiis suggestion was too much in accordance with the author's 
habits of thought to be lightly rejected. A hasty and fragmentary 
sketch of the work was drawn up, but when compared with the vast 
fields of untrodden revelation that yet remained to be gleaned, the 
author would fain have committed his abortive attempt to the flames, 
and trusted to time to unfold that mighty realm of magical philosophy 



i 



8 



whicli can uever be disclosed in a single life-time, much less condensed 
into one volume. But the aIl-too-fi,ppreciative friends to whom the 
author's despair of jDurpose was revealed thought otherwise. 

They deemed the broken gleams of light submitted to them were 
all-sufficient for the age in which they were to be given, and iirged 
that the suggestions rendered, belonged to humanity, and could not 
fail to throw Hght upon many of the mysteries of spiritual manifes- 
tations. 

Whilst wandering incognito through the cities of the United States, 
still seeking to add fresh records of spiritualistic interest to an already 
full treasury of facts, the author had the pleasure of meeting with 
his highly esteemed English friend, Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten.. 
In addition to urgent appeals from this authoritative source to pubhsh 
his book of magic, the author was farther tempted by the generous 
promise that he would be relieved of all the vexatious and technical 
details of the publication. 

Shrinking with unconquerable repugnance from any encounter 
with those butchers of human character, self-styled " critics," whose 
chief dehght is to exercise their carving knives upon the bodies of 
slain reputations, without regard to quahlication for the act r' 
dissection, and equally averse to entrusting the dangerous and *.cult 
processes of magical art to an age wherein even the most jred 
elements of rehgion and spirituaHsm are so often prostituted the 
arts of imposture, or mean traffic, the author's reluctance the 
proposed pubhcation, even with all the advantages of his E;;lisla 
friend's invaluable co-operation, would hardly have been conqired^i 
had not loved and trusted spirit friends taken the helm of the srm- 
tossed mind, and advising the excision of such passages as wou\ be 
dangerous to the half-informed spirituality of the present age, iiese 
well-tried counselors themselves suggested the conditions of pibli- 
cation which they deemed most in harmony with the author's wishes 
and position, conditions subsequently embodied in the circular whicli 
announced the publication of this volume. 

The reception which that circular met with, the unworthy jibes, 
sneers, and cruel insults which have been leveled against the excellent 



lady who volunteered to stand between the author and his shrinking 
spirit, have caused him the deepest remorse for having placed her in 
such a position, and induced a frequent solicitation on his part that 
the pubHcation of the book should be abandoned. In confiding the 
management of this work to his friends, the author had entire confi- 
dence that the invaluable services rendered by the noble editress to 
the Spiritualists of America, would have been sufficiently appreciated 
to protect her against misrepresentation and unjust attack. 

That these expectations have been so rudely disappointed, only 
proves how much better the spiritual intelligences who dictated the 
conditions of publication understood the elements to be dealt with 
than the trusting mortals they counseled. 

That Emma Hardinge Britten has found five hundred friends in 
America, who put faith alike in her judgment and honesty, is deemed 
by her as a sufficient triumph for one lifetime. Should the author of 
" Art Magic " find five hundi-ed readers who can appreciate its occult 
pages, that shaU be esteemed as an equal meed of recompense for his 
share of the work. 

Having already made confession of inefficiency to cope with so vast 
a subject in so small a space, acknowledging that a mere sketch is 
here presented instead of the full length portrait of Art Magic the 
author's mind had conceived, and given to all whom it may concern, 
the rationale of how this publication came to be launched upon the 
world, we shall conclude in the quaint words of Kobert Turner, the 
translator of Cornelius Agrippa's fourth book of " Occult Philosophy " 
into English, who, in presenting his introductory words to the pubhc, 
says : 

" There be four sorts of readers — sponges, which extract all, without 
distinguishing ; hour-glasses, which receive and pour out as fast ; 
bags, which retain only the dregs of spices, and let the wine escape ; 
and sieves, which retain the best only. Some there are of the last 
sort, and to them I present this Occult Philosophy, knowing that they 
shall reap good thereby." A conclusion in which Dr. Rob't Turner is 
cordially joined by 

THE AUTHOR. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



In presenting tlie following pages in an English dress, I feel it 
necessary, in my capacity as editor, to excuse the many shortcomings 
to be found in its context, on the following grounds : 

The author of this work, although a perfect master of the EngHsh 
language in conversation, fails to render his glowing thoughts in 
writing with equal perspicuity. 

In preparing these writings for the press, I found many Latin 
quotations and numerous foot-notes encumbering the text, and to 
render the first into Enghsh, by the aid of a better scholar than 
myself, and embody the second into the sense of the page, obliged me 
in many instances to sacrifice the construction of the sentences I 
interpolated. In much of the idiomatic phraseology which appears 
in this work also, I could have wished to effect changes, but the 
pressure on my own professional duties leaving me but little time for 
hterary occupation, and the haste enjoined upon me by the author, 
who desired to complete the work with as little delay as possible, 
induced me to trust that the sublimity of the sentiments, the grandeur 
of intention, and the high-toned philosophy which pervades this noble 
work, will make ample amends for errors in orthography, or foreign 
modes of expression. 

Trusting, also, that the warmly cherished friends who have so 
generously and confidingly stood by me during the preparation of 
this work will derive as much pleasure from its perusal as the self- 
appointed critics, who have never read it, seem to have derived from 
attacking its unknown contents and well-known editor, I close by 
commending it heartily to that brave five hundred who dare advance 
without fear or favor to the investigation of Art Magic. 

EMMA HAEDINGE BRITTEN, 

Nev) York. 



AET MAGIC 



PART I. 



II^TEODUOTORY, 




Standing as we do upon the sublime heights to which 
the progress of ages has elevated us, we are enabled to look 
back upon the footprints left by the ascending feet of those 
who have preceded us, and take account of every obstacle 
they have surmounted, every impulse that has swayed them 
to the right or the left, and almost hear the pulse-beats of 
the pilgrim hearts that have throbbed in response to the eter- 
nal cry of Life's Marshals, '' Onward and Upward ! " The 
piercing and analytical eye of science can investigate these 
footprints, and determine almost with mathematical pre- 
cision the physical characteristics of the beings who have 
made them. The species or class to which the toiler be-^, 
longed, becomes a letter in that alphabet, whereby science 



14 

as clearly unravels the unwritten past, as the scale of a fish, 
or the fossiliferous imprint of a vanished organism can in- 
terpret the species and class to which the relic belonged ; 
l)ut the far more penetrating gaze of the soul looking into 
the metaphysical causes which underlie all physical effects, 
lieholds an outstretched panorama of being, which tran- 
scends those spheres of knowledge bounded by physical 
horizons ; hence it can pierce not only the causes, but mas- 
ter also the ultimates and controlling forces of mortal exist- 
ence. 

To arrive at a complete apprehension of truth, or that 
WHICH IS, we must call up the witness of that which was, 
that which shall be, and that which moves, as well as that 
which is moved upon. The anatomist who numbers up the 
bones, recites the names and describes the forms and func- 
tions of the tissues, organs and apparatuses which consti- 
tute the physical structure, explains nothing of the true 
man except the house he lives in. 

The physiologist who explains the motions which pro- 
ceed throughout the wonderful housekeeping processes of 
human life, supplements in one degree the science of anato- 
my, but does no more than his contemporary by way of 
unveiling the mystery of that being which inhabits the 
many-sided structure. Oh, how long ! how wistfully, and 
yet in what agonizing yearning for light — light upon the 
mystery of self-knowledge, light upon the problems of 
who am 1 1 what am 1 7 whose am I ? whence do I 
come ] and whither am I bound 1 — has the I am of mortal 
existence waited ! Can the answer ever be rendered 7 If 
sOj it must come from the realm of true knowledge, the esot- 
eric innermost, from whence and to which the exoteric is 
but a temporary pilgrim ! Those who have stood face to 
face with this esoteric sunbeam, who have beheld it vanish- 
ing behind the clouds of matter for the span of a mortal 



«/ 



15 

term of existence, but emerging again into the clear noon- 
day radiance of a day which knows no night, a firmament 
whose unbounded vistas enshroud no mysteries, a realm of 
being limited only by the capacity of finite perception — 
such an one surely has the right to say, I know, and such 
an one writes and alleges he will reveal the order of Di- 
vine wisdom as manifest in human existence, and declared 
by the souls who have lived and struggled behind the veil, 
broken their way by the sword of death through its misty 
envelopment, and finally attained to that breadth of vision 
where cause and effect cohere like pearls on the unbroken 
thread of destiny, where past and future lie outstretched 
in the boundless panoramas of a never beginning, never 
ending present. 

Any attempt to elucidate the problems of being, con- 
ducted in one direction, and by one method alone, must fail. 

Those philosophers who reason from induction alone, 
only arrive at a mayhap perception of truth, nor do they 
fare any better who conduct their arguments through the 
half-declared processes of deduction. Both methods are 
essential to master the entire situation. 

Theory must prompt the possibility of new discoveries, 
and facts must goad us on to the evolvement of new theo- 
ries — even phenomena are needed to startle our self-con- 
ceit from the arrogant assumptions of half-enlightened, 
half-blind belief, and failures must follow on the heels of 
successes ere we can presume to erect a milestone on the 
path of destiny for the guidance of others. When every 
method has been exhausted, and all avenues to the way of 
light have been carefully traversed, then, and not till then, 
can the soul of man venture to affirm, I know ; then, and 
not till then, are we in a position to challenge the bigoted 
adherents of a single school, or a solitary method, and say, 
" I have entered upon a grander vista of truth than you — 



16 

follow me !" Emerging from the many branching avenues 
of knowledge which the study of spirit and matter, fact and 
theory, intuition and phenomena afford, let us lay out our 
scheme of the Universe, and then proceed from its underly- 
ing principles to such results as their action have given 
shape and organic life to. 



SECTION I. 

The Constitution of the Solar Universe. 

The Solar Universe, of which the earth is a part, consists 
of Matter, Force and Spirit. 

Matter is an aggregation of minute, indestructible atoms, 
existing in the four states known as solid, fluid, gaseous 
and ethereal. The general attributes which distinguish 
matter in the three first conditions, are indestructibility, 
extension, divisibility, impenetrability, and inertia. 

By indestructibility is meant that property which is the 
antithesis of annihilation, and utterly prevents the as- 
sumption that a single atom of matter, however minute, 
whether in the finest condition of air or the hardest of 
crystal, can ever be wholly pat out of existence. 

Extension is the property by which an atom of matter 
can be changed so as to occupy more or less space. 

Divisibility is the property by which an atom can be di- 
vided or reduced to the smallest known particles, and yet 
each particle preserve some capacity for farther subdi- 
vision. 

Impenetrability implies the impossibility of one atom 
occupying the space of another ; and inertia is the tenden- 
cy of matter to continue either in that condition of rest or 



17 

motion in whicii it has once been set by the application of 
force, until another force changes the former direction. 
There are many other definitions applicable to matter ; 
such as crystalline, porous, dense, elastic, etc., etc.; but the 
five general properties enumerated above, will sufficiently 
explain its nature for our present purpose. 

Ether is matter in so rare and sublimated a condition, 
that its divisibility into particles is no longer possible to 
man in his present stage of scientific attainment. It far 
transcends the rarefaction of the finest of gases, hydrogen, 
and filling up every space of the solar universe explored 
by man, not occupied by particled matter, may with pro- 
priety be called unparticled matter. 

Force is the life principle of being. It is the second of 
the grand Trinity of* elements which constitute existence, 
and ranks, therefore, next to matter, which it permeates, 
vitalizes, and moves. It is motion per se, and though mat- 
ter is never exhibited without it, Force, as we shall here- 
after prove, can exist without a material body for its exhi- 
bition. 

Its attributes are dual, and should be named Attraction 
and Repulsion. 

The vast and extended orbits of planetary bodies are 
marked out and regulated by Force, with its dual attri- 
butes, now attracting the revolving satellite to the centre, 
now forcing it off into a relative point of distance, but al- 
ways maintaining it in a given path or orbit between the 
oscillations of its contending motions. 

Force is the unresting life which charges every atom of 
matter, and fits inorganic masses to become organic. It is 
Electricity in the air ; Magnetism in the earth ; Galvan- 
ism between difierent metallic particles — cohesion, disin- 
tegration, gravitation, centripetal and centrifugal forms of 



18 

motion ; Life in plants, animals, and men, the aural^ astral^ 
or magnetic hodij of spirits. 

Spirit is the one primordial, uncreated, eternal, infinite 
Alpha and Omega of Being. It may have subsisted inde- 
pendent of Force and Matter, evolving both from its own 
incomprehensible but illimitable perfection ; but Force and 
Matter could never have originated Spirit, as its one sole 
attribute comprehends and embraces all others, must ante- 
date, govern, and surpass all others, and is itself the cause 
of all effects. That attribute is Will. 

As there are but two attributes of Force, namely, 
attraction and repulsion, yet many varieties of modes 
in which attraction and repulsion are perceived, so, 
whilst there is but one attribute of Spirit, namely. Will, 
there are many subordinate principles emanating from 
Will. Such are Love, Wisdom, Use, Beauty, Intelligence, 
Skill, etc., etc. The most marked and distinctive proce- 
dures are, however, nine ; namely. Love, Wisdom, and 
Power; Creation, Preservation, and Progress ; Life, Death, 
and Regeneration. 

In Matter, Force, and Spirit, then, is the grand Trinity 
of Being, which constitutes the solar universe and its in- 
habitants. 

Reasoning from analogy, and still more, founding upon 
the assertions of wise teaching angels and the vague shad- 
ows of antique beliefs, founded in a spiritual enlightenment 
far in advance of the present, we have authority for sup- 
posing that the astral, and all other universes included in 
the illimitable fields of being, may have proceeded from and 
include the same primordial Trinity of elements, and that 
Spi-rit, Force, and Matter form that stupendous Ego, the 
totality of which, to finite beings, is vaguely called God, the 
separated units of which include Astral and Solar Systems, 
Suns, Satellites, Worlds, Spirits, Men, Animate and In- 
animiate Things, and Atoms. 



19 



SECTIOI^ II. 

The Scheme of the Solar Universe. 

All human beliefs that are derived from oral, tradition- 
al, monumental, or sacerdotal sources, incline to ascribe the 
origin of man to a purer and more spiritualized cause than 
that of human generation. 

The favorite and widely diffused idea of the ancients, 
that man incurred the penalty of mortal birth and the dis- 
cipline of a mortal existence by disobedience, pervades so 
universally the foundations of all religious systems, that it 
demands from philosophy some more rational explanation 
than the contemptuous stigma of ''myth." Whence 
comes myth, and can it any more explain the origin of 
ideas than a shadow can account for form without a sub- 
stance 1 We can accept nothing, learn nothing, hope for 
nothing, from modern theology ; for it teaches no philoso- 
phy, owns allegiance to no science, and is amenable to no 
requirements of reason or justice. And yet even she cher- 
ishes, in her usual materialistic way, the dogmas of original 
sin and the fall of man from a state of primeval innocence. 

Who can render account of these opinions '? And since 
time cannot quench them, nor the devotees of classical 
lore and antique philosophy blot them out from " the wis- 
dom of the ages," why not seek to harmonize them with 
those glimpses of an inner and higher life with which all 
human records are so mysteriously illuminated 7 

The Fall of Man is but the shadow of a still diviner 
truth, the substance of which is — The Fall of Spirit. All 
existence originates in Spirit. As the curious mechanism 
of the clock, the ship, the steam-engine, are all creations 
first of the mechanical mind, in which their several parts 



20 

are contained ere tliej can become reduced to a material 
expression, so the clockwork of the sideral heavens, the 
worlds which sail through the oceans of space, and the 
mechanism of every organized form, from the rounding of 
a dewdrop to the complicated structure of a man, must have 
had their origin in mind. Since mind is but an attribute 
of Will, and Will is Spirit, we cannot escape from the con- 
clusion that the creation of the physical universe is but the 
expression of a spiritual idea. The creation of a physical 
man is no more, no less. The human race is the external 
expression of a spiritual idea, because ideas must originate 
with spirit ere they can be expressed in matter. The 
watch, the ship, the steam-engine are as much genuine cre- 
ations of the soul hefiwe as after they are modelled out in 
matter. Should they never be thus incarnated, they have 
been, and are, and ever will remain, in the imperishable 
realm of spiritual entities. 

Matter creates nothing. It is only the mould which 
Spirit uses to externalize its ideas for the sake of external 
uses. 

The things which will appear as new inventions, the 
methods of science which will take their places as new 
discoveries on earth in ages yet unborn, are all in imper- 
ishable existence now and ever have been in the eternal 
realms of spirit. Can man be exempt from this universal 
law of ]3rocedure '? 

Man, who is the microcosm of being, the conservator of 
all forms of force, all varieties of matter — can he be the 
sole exception to the all-embracing order of Divine proce- 
dure 1: Only in the superstitious and unscientific belie! 
of the bigot, or the scarcely less unreasonable blindness 
of materialism. Man was a spirit ere he was born into 
matter. 

In the primordial conditions of planetary life, creatures 
so finely organized as man could not be sustained, hence 



21 

long ages of preparatory growth were essential to fit this or 
any earth for his reception. 

When matter had been sufficiently laborated by the suc- 
cessive births and destructions of millions of generations 
of organized beings in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, 
the earth awaited the advent of a still hi&iier and nobler 
creature than any that had yet appeared ; one who should 
in its perfection and microcosmic powers finish the work 
of creation, cap the climax of animated being, and close up 
the succession of mortal forms by the introduction of an 
immortal being. The earth called for man, and he came. 
He was already an immortal existence, a spirit ; not a per- 
fected, self-conscious, individualized entity, but a bright 
luminous emanation of the Divine mind. He was the Di- 
vine idea in the shape of the man that should be. Angelic 
in essence, spiritual in substance, he lived in a paradise 
appropriate to him, pure and innocent, but still wholly 
lacking in those elements of love, wisdom, and power 
which can be perfected alone through incarnation in a ma- 
terial body, and progress through probationary states. 

That man existed as a pure spiritual being, a sinless 
paradisaical unit, previous to his incarnation in a material 
body, is not only the opinion of those sages of antiquity 
who studied from the original books of life, rather than 
from records made and altered to suit the purposes of suc- 
cessive generations of interested priests, but it is the wit- 
ness of the human spirit itself ere it became bent and per- 
verted by theological myths, or its memories were dimmed 
by time and the more vivid impressions of mortal experi- 
ences. In every primordial condition of tlie human fami- 
ly the belief in a fall or descent of the spirit from heaven 
to earth, from purity to transgression, is an unquenchable 
element in man's nature. Belief itcan scarcely be called; 
it is a memory, growing fainter and fainter as it recedes 



22 

from its source, but still an indestructible link of connec- 
tion in that chain of destiny which has finally incarnated 
the soul in a mortal body. 

We shall close this section by citations from some few 
out of the countless host of authoritative minds who have 
favored the opinions herein announced as the rationale of 
the first act in the Divine drama of human existence. 



SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION II. 

Being arguments derived chiefly from ancient History in sup- 
port of the philosophy affirmed in the preceding pages. 

The oldest written scriptures in existence are supposed 
to be the Hindoo Vedas. 

They repeatedly affirm the original and independent ex- 
istence of spirit as the sole creative cause of Being, and 
claim that man was an emanation from this divine ele- 
ment, that he was originally pure and good, and that his 
existence on earth and his successive transmigrations 
through various animal forms are simply designed as puri- 
fications through which his soul may regain that alliance 
with Brahm, the Supreme Being, which he has lost by a 
descent from a spiritual to a material existence. 

Extracts from the Vedas. 

" That spirit who it; uot matter is one ; He is the incomprehensible Being from 
"whom all proceed, to whom all must return. He is Brahm — The Spirit." 

"As ten thousand beams emanate from one central fire, thus do ten thousand 
souls emanate from Him, the one Eternal soul, and return to Him." 

"May this soul of mine, which is a ray of perfect wisdom, pure intellect, and 
eternal essence, which is quenchless light and eternal heat, fixed within a change- 
ful, created body, be re-united by devout meditation and divine science, with the 
Spirit, supremely blest and infinitely wise." 



23 

In all clear and thorough analyses of the Egyptian mys- 
teries, the corner-stone of belief rests on the assumption that 
the First Great Cause is a Spirit. That the first and only 
element of Being was Soul — that it existed eternally, and 
filled infinity. By its power of will it separated itself into 
emanations and elements, and by its own inherent capacity 
for creation, the unresting element of force was evolved ; 
then came matter, and by the action of force on matter, 
the unspeakable wisdom of the uncreated soul, moving on 
the ocean of chaos, created Form and evolved order. The 
fiery particles of matter ascended to form luminous bodies, 
the heavier descended and aggregated into earths, seas, 
plants, animals, and the bodies of men. 

From the eternal soul proceeded successive emanations 
ot spiritual beings, more or less elevated according to their 
status of ascent or descent in the grand scale of the 
Spiritual Kingdom. 

Herodotus affirms that the Egyptians were the first 
people who distinctly taught the immortality of the human 
Soul, but the same doctrine, and in all probability the 
original of all religious systems, was enunciated in India, 
when the Egyptian Dynasty was yet in its infancy. More 
of the specialty of belief in both these monumental nations 
will hereafter be given when treating of their magical cere- 
monies ; but it is in order to observe here, that the foun- 
dation of their famous mysteries was laid in the belief that 
the soul had fallen from an original state of purity and in- 
nocence, had gravitated from a spiritual essence to a mate- 
rial body, and that the chief end, aim and scope of earthly 
being, was to conduct the soul through successive stages of 
purification, back into original alliance with Deity. 

This is the central doctrine of Plato, Pythagoras, Jam- 
blichiis, Plutarch, and, indeed, of all the most renowned 
sages, philosophers, and historians who flourished from the 



24 

beginning of historic times, to those of the early Christian 
fathers. Tlie Cabalists, Gnostics, Essenes, Therapeuts, 
the M3^stics of the mediaaval ages, and some of the seers 
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, cherished simi- 
lar opinions concerning the origin of soul, and its proba- 
tionary experiences. 

In this category of testimony we cannot exclude the wit- 
ness of those, who, as spirits themselves, freed from the 
materialistic shadows which obscure our vision and darken 
our intuitions, must be more qualified than we are to dis- 
close the realities of past and future states of spiritual be- 
ing- 

Amongst all the latter-day revelations claiming to origi- 
nate with the enfranchised souls of those who had once 
lived on earth, none come to mortals with more untram- 
melled freedom from human intervention, than the revela- 
tions of Kerner's Seeress, Madame Hauffe, commonly called 
" The Seeress of Prevorst," and the Somnamhules of Al- 
phonse Cahagnet, a working man of Paris, once a mate- 
rialist ; a mere carious experimenter in the outset, with 
the modern marvel of animal magnetism, but one who, as 
an impartial and intelligent interpreter of unlooked- 
for revelations received through the magnetic sleep, con- 
stitutes one of the best and least questionable of the wit- 
nesses for spiritual truth and revelation in the nineteenth 
century. 

About the year 1846 or '7, Mons. Cahagnet, having be- 
come very familiar with somnambulistic revelations from 
the world of spirits, and enjoying the privilege of this com- 
munion through several of the most remarkable and lucid 
subjects that the age afforded, received a number of com- 
munications affirming the fact of the soul's existence an- 
terior to its appearance upon earth. Whilst denying em- 
phatically any belief in the doctrines of the Re-incarnation- 



25 

ists, and declaring against it in the most positive terms, the 
communicating spirits uniformly alleged that, when freed 
from the trammels of matter, they all remembered having 
lived in an anterior state of purity and innocence as spirits ; 
that they perceived how truly and wisely their earthly 
lives were designed for probationary purposes, and meant 
to impart vigor and knowledge to the soul ; but that once 
undergone, it was never again repeated, and the return of 
the soul to its former spiritual state was never interrupted 
by re-incarnations on earth. These spirits, too, al- 
leged that the sphere of eternity afforded the souls of evil 
or unprogressed men all the opportunities necessary to 
purify them from sin and its effects, through innumerable 
stages of progress. 

A witness so unexpected as these spirits afford, and 
revelations so full of evidence of their genuine character, 
cannot be dismissed without a few examples of their style 
of teaching. 

A spirit communicating with the ecstatic Bruno, says, 
" We are born and die but once ; when we are in heaven, it 
is for eternity." Q. "Do we recollect our earthly exist- 
ence?" A. "Yes, and our anterior one also." Q. " What an- 
terior existence ?" A. "Before appearing on earth, man lived 
in a spiritual world similar to the one in which he lives on 
quitting earth. Each awaits his turn in this world to ap- 
pear on earth, an appearance necessary, a life of trials none 
can escape." Through the best of all Mons. Cahagnet's 
Liicicles^ Adele, in an interview with the spirit of the illus- 
trious Swedenborg, these words were given: " The life an- 
terior which we have all passed through, was, so to speak, a 
life of nothingness, of childbirth, of happiness like that 
which we enjoy on our exit from the earth ; l3ut this happi- 
ness cannot be comprehended, because it is not accompanied 
with sensations to prove its sweet reality, therefore God has 



26 

deemed fit that we should pass through these successive 
lives, the first, on the globes of which I speak to you — a 
life unknown, of beatitude, devoid of sensation — the second, 
the one you enjoy, a life of action, sensation — a painful life 
placed between the two, to demonstrate through its con- 
trast the sweetness of the third — the life of good and evil, 
without which we should not be able to appreciate the 

happy state reserved for us." Many more spirits 

communicating through difierent media confirmed these 
opinions and elaborated upon their truth and reasonable- 
ness, but the limitation of our space forbid further ex- 
tracts 

^ In one of the principal cities of Hindostan, there resides, 
in the very focus of religious and political conserva- 
tism, a noble Hindoo, whose ofiicial rank and standing 
is by no means commensurate with his extreme 
poverty. Bound by the latter restriction and a careful 
observance of the forms and ceremonials which belong to 
his nation, he is compelled to hide in the depths of his 
highly spiritualized and intellectual nature the extraordi- 
nary revelations that have been made to him from invisible 
authors through the mediumship of his little niece, a child 
of some twelve years old. In the presence of this little one, 
whole quires of blank paper are rapidly filled up hy no vis- 
ible hands and without even the ordinary appliances of 
pens, pencils or ink. 

It is enough to lay the blank sheets on a tripod, care- 
fully screened from the direct rays of light, but still dimly 
visible to the eyes of attentive observers. The child sits 
on the ground, and lays her head on the tripod, embrac- 
ing its supports with her little arms. In this attitude she 
most commonly sleeps for an hour, during which time the 
sheets lying on the tripod are filled up with exquisitely 
formed characters in the ancient Sanscrit. Over four vol- 



27 

umes of these writings have been thus produced, and that 
in something less than a period of three years. 

Questions are often laid in simple Hindostanee on the 
tripod, when information is sought by the family of the 
Hindoo, and the responses are always found embodied in 
some portions of the next writings received. 

In answer to several questions concerning the origin of 
Soul, and the doctrine of its transmigration through the 
forms of animals, one of the Sanscrit writings contained 
the following sentences : 



" That the Soul is an emanation from Deity, and in its original essence is all purity, 
truth, and wisdom, is an axiom which the disembodied learn, when the powers of 
memory ai'e sufficiently awakened to perceive the states of existence anterior to 
mortal birth. In the Paradises of purity and love, souls spring up like blossoms, 
in the all Father's garden of immortal beauty. It is the tendency of that Divine 
nature, whose chief attributes are Love and "Wisdom, Heat and Light, to repeat it- 
self eternally, and mirror forth its own perfections in scintillations from itself. 
These sparks of heavenly fire become souls, and as the effect must share in the na- 
ture of the cause, the fire which warms into life also illuminates into light, hence 
the soul emanations from the Divine are all love and heat, whilst the illumination of 
light, which streams ever from the great central Sun of being, irradiates all souls 
with corresponding beams of light. Born of Love, which corresponds to Divine 
heat and warmth, and irradiated with Light, which is Divine wisdom and truth, 
the first and most powerful soul emanations repeated the action of their Supreme 
Originator, gave off emanations from their own being, some higher, some lower, the 
highest tending upward into spiritual essences, the lowest forming particled mat- 
ter. These denser emanations, following out the creative law, aggregated into 
suns, satellites, worlds, and each repeatiug the story of creation, suns gave 
birth to systems, and every rhember of a system became a theatre of subordinate 
states of spiritual or material existence. 

" Thus do ideas descend into forms, and forms ascend into ideas. Thus is the 
growth, development, and progress of creation endless, and thus must spirit orig- 
inate and ever create worlds of matter, for the purposes of its own progressive 
unfoldment. 

" Will the mighty march of creation never cease f Will the cable anchored in the 
heart of the great mystery. Deity, stj-etch out forever ? 

" ' Forever !' shout the blazing suns, leaping on in the fiery orbits of their shining 
life, and trailing in their glittering pathway ten thousand satellites and meteoric 
sparks, whirling, flashing in their jeweled crowns, all embryonic germs of new, 
young worlds that shall be." 

" Earths that have attained to the capacity to support organic life, necessarily 
attract it. Earths demand it. Heaven supplies it. Prom whence? As the 
earths groan for the lordship of superior beings to rule over them, the spiiits, in 



\ 



28 

their distant Edeus, hear the whispers of the tempting serpent, the animal princi- 
ple, the urgent intellect, which, appealing to the blest souls in their distant para- 
dises, fill them with indescribable longings for change, for broader vistas of knowl- 
edge, for mightier powers ; they would be as the gods, and know good and evil ; 
and in this urgent appeal of the earths for man, and this involuntary yearning of 
the spirit for intellectual knowledge, the union is effected between the two, and 
the spirit becomes precipitated into the realms of matter to undergo a pilgrimage 
through the probationary states of earth, and only to regain its paradise again Ijy 
the fnlfillment of that pilgrimage. 

" "When spirits lived as such, in paradise, emanations from a spiritual Deific 

source, they knew no sex, nor reproduced their kind "When they fell, and the 

earth, like magnetic tractors drew them within the vortex of its grosser element, 
they became what the earths compelled them to be. In the earlier ages of these 
growing worlds, the ccmditions of life were rude and violent, hence the creatures on 
them partook of their nature. Then, too, first obtained the nature of sex, and the 
law of generation. To people these earths, man, like the other living creatures, 
must reproduce his kind. All things in matter ai-e male and female ; minerals, 
plants, animals, and men. Spirit, the creative energy, is the masculine principle 
that creates ; nature, the passive recipient, is that which germinates ; hence crea- 
tion. Man must obey the law; hence sex and generation." 

"Man lives on many earths before he reaches this. Myriads of worlds swarm 
in space where the soul in rudimental states performs its pilgrimages ere he 
reaches the large and shining planet named the Earth, the glorious function of 
which is to confer self -consciousness. At this point only is he man ; at every 
other stage of his vast wild journey he is but an embryonic being — a fleeting, 
temporary shape of matter — a creature in which a part, but only a part, of the 
high imprisoned soul shines forth; a rudimental shape with rudimental functions, 
ever living, dying, sustaining a fleeting, spiritual existence, as rudimental as the 
material shape from whence it emerged ; a butterfly springing up from the chryso- 
litic shell, but ever as it onward rushes, in new births, new deaths, new incarna- 
tions, anon to die and live again, but still stretch upward, still strive onward, still 
rush on the giddy, dreadful, toilsome, rugged path, until it awakens once more — 
once more to live and be a material shape, a thing of dust, a creature of flesh and 
blood, but now — a man. 

" It is from the dim memory that the soul retains, first of its original bright- 
ness and fall, next of its countless migrations through the various andertoues of 
being that antedate its appearance on this earth as a man, that the belief in the 
doctrine of the metempsychosis (transmigration of souls through the animal king- 
dom) has arisen. 

"Yet it is a sin against divine truth to believe that the exalted soul that has 
once reached the dignity and upright stature of manhood should, or could, i-etro- 
grade into the bodies of creeping things, or crouching animals — iSTot so, not so !" 

" In the fleeting images which antecedent states leave on the spiritual brain, in 
the half-effaced and half-imperfect perceptions of existence which each new stage 
of progress and each successive journey through various lower earths leave, like an 
untjuiet, ill-remembered dream on the spirit's consciousness, the past becomes 
confused with the present, and something of what we have been imposes its 
shadow across the path of the future, as a dim possibility of what we may be. 

" After the soul's birth into humanity, it acquires self-consciousness, knowledge 



29 

of its own individuality, and closing up for ever its career of material transform- 
ations, with ttie death of the mortal body, it gravitates on to a fresh series of 
esistences in purely spiritual realms of being. Here the farther purifications of the 
soul commence anew ; commence with that sublime attribute of self-knowledge 
which enables even the wickedest spirit to enjoy and profit by the change, for 
memory supplies him with lessons which urge him to struggle forward into con- 
quest over sin, and prophetic sight stimulates him to aspire until he shall attain, 
by well-directed efi"ort, the sublime heights of purity and goodness from which he 
fell, to become a mortal pilgrim." 

" The triumphant souls who enter Heaven by effort are God's ministering angels. 
Angels of power, wisdom, strength and beauty. The dwellers in the primal 
states of Eden are only Spirits. The first are God-men — heavenly men — 
strong and mighty Powers, Thrones, Dominions, "World-Builders, glorious hierar- 
chies of Sun-bright Souls, who never more can fall. Spirits are but the breath, the 

spark, the shadow of a God ; Angels are Gods in person During the 

various transitional states of the soul in passing through the myriads of forms and 
myriads of earths whereon their probations are outwrought, the changes are all 
effected by a process analogous to human death — during the period that subsists 
ere the soul, expelled from one material shape enters auothei', the drifting spirit, 
still enveloped by the magnetic aural body which binds it to the realm of mat- 
ter, becomes for its short term of intermediate spiritual existence An Elementary 
Spirit." 



30 



SECTION III. 

Of Deity — TTie Supreme Being or Beings — Is there one or 
many Gods ? Who can know the Unlcnowahle f or, May 
not the Known lead up to what has been deemed the Un- 
knoioahlef * 

It is easier for the imagination to rest upon the idea of 
one God than many, and still more natural for the soul 
of man to accept of Polytheism than Atheism. 

The utter insufficiency of any argument which attempts 
to shut out an idea because its magnitude baffles the finite 
mind, has never been more completely demonstrated than 
when man, the puny, shadowy phantom who flits through 
a few sand grains of time, and then disappears for an eter- 
nity, attempts to argue against the existence of any higher 
being than himself, simply because he, by his sensuous 
perception, cannot apprehend it ! 

IS!o man can, by sensuous perception, apprehend the exis- 
tence of his own soul. Socrates well understood this truth 
when he said, " I respect my soul though I cannot see it," 
and the Apostle Paul equally well appreciated its force 
when he declared that the spiritual man alone could judge of 
the things of the spirit. 

From the revelations of spirits who are in the experi- 
ence of spiritual entities, and the sublime imaginings ol 
those who in the childlike faiths of antiquity were nearer 
to God than are the mammon-worshipers of to-day, will 
we erect our scheme of the Divine Godhead, sm-rounding 
the noble temple with such a scaffolding of testimony as 
will enable every reader to climb to the highest pinnacle 
of thought which the finite mind can reach. 



31 

That " God is a Spirit," and the eternal, uncreated, self- 
existent, and infinite realm of Spirit is God^ none can deny 
who profoundly analyze the depths of being pointed to in 
our first two Sections ; but as to the mode in which God 
can be apprehended, or whether there be one or many 
Gods, remain questions open to much broader fields of spec- 
ulation. 

Were it not more in the order of these writings to pre- 
sent the results of vast mental struggles, and the conclu- 
sions drawn from researches which have only permitted 
the panting Soul to pause for breath at the gates which 
lead from one stage of infinity to another, we should pre- 
cede our own definitions of Godhead, by the opinions of 
the authorities we propose to cite ; but the responsibility 
of affirmation is ours, and surrounded as we are " by a cloud 
of witnesses," who wave the lustrous banners of spiritual 
truths above our page, how can we hesitate, or, in the cold 
world's materialistic phrase, why fear to commit ourselves to 
opinions we know in our Soul to be Divine truth ? 

The Solar System of which our earth is a part, moves 
around the physical sun as a centre of light, heat, and at- 
traction. 

By well defined astronomical laws we know that this 
Solar System forms only a part of a larger and far grander 
aggregation of starry worlds, called the Astral System. 

The exact centre of this System is not arrived at, yet 
all the observations of astronomy point to such a pivotal 
centre, and the known laws of Science determine that in 
the visible universe, all motions proceed in and are sus- 
tained by the dual modes of centrifugal and centripetal 
force. That the stars discovered by astronomical Science 
are only a part of an array of systems which occupy the 
spaces of infinity, is an axiom universally acknowledged ; 
hence, indeed, the terms "infinity" and "boundless," as 



32 

!ip2)licd to the sidereal heavens ; but in the midst of that 
unknowable which stretches away into vistas where the 
glass of the astronomer cannot penetrate, and the mind of 
the most aspirational becomes palsied, even there, the stead- 
fast helm of physical science guides the ship and prophe- 
sies of an inevitable port of knowledge yet to be reached. 

'' The law which rounds a dew-drop shapes a world," 
and the principles which inhere in one System prevail 
throughout space. We cannot find a telescope that will 
pierce into the Astral Centre, nor resolve all the floating- 
masses of nebala3 that crowd the galaxy into blazing Suns ; 
but we know by analogy that that Centre and those Suns 
exist, and that the only horizon that shuts them out from 
human discovery, is human ignorance and incapacity. 

In the midst of all our baffled wisdom and enlightened 
ignorance, physical Science and spiritual revelation sup- 
plementing each other, assure us there is one grand central 
Sun of being. 

Physical science tells us it must be so. Spiritual revela- 
tion affirms it is so. That central Sun is God. This 
perfection of being exists in the form of a globe, the only 
point of union between mathematics and geometry, and 
occupies the centre, the only position whereby revolving- 
universes can live, move, and have their being and life, be 
born, sustained and renewed. 

God is the dispenser of heat and light, the two elements 
in being which account for generation and revelation, love 
and wisdom, life and sense. This Spiritual Sun throws off 
from the centre the elements of new-created worlds by 
centrifugal force, and draws them back and keeps them 
in determinate orbits by centripetal force. Its nature is 
Spirit ; its attribute, Will ; its manifestations, Love, Wis- 
dom, PoAVER. This is God. 



33 



SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION III. 

The Opinions of Ancient and Modern Philosophers and 
Spiritists concerning the Nature and Individuality of 
One Supreme Being. 

The best of Philologists agree in attributing to the na- 
tions or peoples called Aryan, or Indo-European, the first 
linguistic records we possess : 

" Men do not invent names for things of which they 
have no idea." 

" The Word has always been recognized as the fittest 
Symbol of Truth, and the purest manifestation of Deity." 
The Aryan name for God was Div, which signifies The 
clear light of day ; and this word has become the root- word 
of all worship for untold ages, until we arrive at its mod- 
ern appellative. Deity. 

In fragmentary accounts given of the most early his- 
toric people, classified as Aryan, it is asserted that they 
kept fires constantly burning as their chief element in re- 
ligious worship, Fustel de Coidanges^ in his fine epic (for 
such it is), entitled La Cite Antique^ published in Paris, in 
1870, clearly proves that the Aryan's religious belief, rec- 
ognized in fire the symbol of God — in light his wisdom — 
in material forms an expression of his potential word — and 
in Guardian Spirits his Ministering Angels, or tutelary 
deities. 

When we trace the early conceptions of the Hindoos 
— that most ancient of contemplative men, those children 
of the Spirit, who communed with Nature's God through 
the profoundest study of Nature herself — we find they 
cherished ideas so exalted of the First Great Cause, that 
they ventured not to embody their thought of Him in any 
form, symbol, or even to assign Him a name. 



34 

The Supreme Being was with them, the Unknowable, 
and only became typified as Brakm^ which, interpreted, 
signifies The Void, The Silent Region which cannot be 
pierced — the unfathomable which cannot be gauged or un- 
derstood. That the human mind might rest on a Provi- 
dential scheme, the Sages of India taught that there were 
three Subordinate emanations from the First Great Cause, 
who embodied the Grand Trinity of his Deific attributes. 
This primordial Trinity consisted of Brahma, the Creator; 
V'ishnu, the Preserver; and Siva, the Destroyer and Re- 
producer. 

Each of these Deific emanations were so intimately con- 
nected in the Hindoo mind with the attributes of heat and 
light, that the earliest Hindostanee worship may, with truth, 
be assumed to have laid the foundation of that stupendous 
system known, in later ages, as the astronomical religion. 
A large proportion of the Vedas — the oldest of the Hindoo 
Scriptures — consist of epics in praise of Light ; accounts oi 
the miracles outwrought by the mighty Sun-God ; invoca- 
tions to the spirits of the air, moon, stars, the sacred fire, 
and different elements. Many are the prayers addressed 
to Indra, the starry-robed Ruler of the constellated heav- 
ens, as well as to the spirits of different departments ol 
the Universe. Fire was held sacred in every household, 
and employed in all sacerdotal rites. The very shape ol 
the pyramidal Temples, or the blunted pylons, signified 
the all-pervading reverence of the Hindoo mind for the 
symbol of the tapering flame. 

In one of the most ancient of the Vedic hymns, ad- 
dressed to the Heranyagarbha, occurs the following pas- 
sages : 

" In the beginning there arose the Source of golden light. He was the only 
born Lord of all that is. He established the earth and the sky. To what other 
God shall we offer sacrifice ? He through whom the sky is bright, and the earth 
IS firm ; who measured out the light in the air. To what other Grod, etc., etc. 



35 



"Wherever the mighty water clouds went ; where they placed the seed and lit 
the fire ; thence arose He who is the only life of the bright Gods. To what other 
God, etc., etc. 

"There was neither entity, nor non-entity then — neither atmosphere nor sky be- 
yond. Death was not, nor therefore immortality ; nor day nor night. That one 
breathed breathless by itself. There was nothing different from it, nor beyond it. 
The covered germ burst forth by mental heat ; then first came Love upon it, the 
Spring of mind. The rays shot across, and. there were mighty powers producing 
all things. ISTature beneath, and Energy above/' 

The Vedic hymns are nearly all invocations to the Solar 
and Astral sources of light and heat ; the Vedic philoso- 
phy, speculations on the origin of Being, ever re- affirming 
the influence of Solar and Astral agency in Creation. 

The following passage, descriptive of the Hindoo's God, 
will convey an idea of his sublime conceptions of Deity : 

"Heaven is his head; the sun and moon are his eyes; the earth his feet; space 
his ears ; air his breath. He is the Soul of the Universe. The Sun of all lumin- 
aries. All Creation derives light from him alone. The wise call him the Supreme 
Light-giving Spirit." 

In the Egyptian and Persian Theogany, the direct ac- 
knowledgment of one Supreme Being corresponding to the 
Sun and its attributes, is as marked as in in the Aryan and 
Indian records. The elaborate woof of Grecian and Ro- 
man Mythology partake of the same golden threads of 
belief, and whilst ramifying into a complete system of 
Polytheism, still refer back to the Indian and Egyptian 
idea of Creation springing from one Supreme Source, and 
this a spiritual centre of heat or creative energy, and 
light or creative wisdom. 

In the Orphic Songs, the one first Great Cause cele- 
brated as Zeus is more completely associated with the 
Egyptian idea of a Sun-God, a spirit "without parts or 
passion, sex or nature," than in the theories of later phi- 
losophers. Orpheus, the Sage, to whom the introduction 
of Egyptian Theogony into Greece is mainly due, chants 
thus of the Supreme Being : 



36 

"Zous is male, Zeus is female. Zeus is the Spirit of all things. Zeus is the 
rushing of uncreated fire. Zeus is the king ; he is the sun and moon. Zeus is the 
might}^ power, the demon, the one mighty frame in which this universe re- 
volves. He is fire and water, earth and ether, day and night. All things unite 
in the body of Zeus." 

Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and other of the 
most distinguished Grecian sages, taught more directly of 
God as a Spirit, and as the source from which all sub- 
ordinate gods proceeded. 

Passing on to the mediaeval, and still later ages, we find 
the most illuminated of the Mystics either reaffirming the 
ancient beliefs of India and Egypt in the Great Central 
Sun, or claiming to receive confirmation of this truth from 
spiritual inspiration, direct revelations, or intercourse with 
superior orders of being. 

Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, Jacob Behmen, and 
Swedenborg, taught this idea of Deity with more or less 
distinctness. Swedenborg, in particular, who elevates his 
conception of Jesus Christ into the Lord, from whom, and 
to whom, all the activities of the Created Universe proceed 
and return — clearly teaches that "the Lord "25 only seen as 
a Sun. In his essay on " Creation hy Uvo Suns,^^ he affirms 
that " The Sun of Heaven is the Lord, the light there is 
Divine truth, and the heat there is Divine good, which pro- 
ceed from the Lord as a Sun. From that origin are all 
things which exist and appear in the heavens." Again he 
says : " That the Lord actually appears in heaven as a Sun, 
has not only been told me by the angels, but has also been 
given me to see several times, wherefore what I have seen 
and heard concerning the Lord as a Sun, I would here de- 
scribe," &c., &c. 

Of still more recent date are the teachings of certain 
spirits claiming to have had a mortal existence, many thou- 
ands of years ago, but who found themselves impelled to re- 



37 

turn to earth during the great spiritual outpouring of the last 
quarter of a century, in the United States of America. 
We shall quote from those who manifested their presence 
at the spirit house of Jonathan Koons, a farmer residing in 
the remotest wilds of Athens County, Ohio, and who gave 
their testimony, speaking through trumpets with an audi- 
ble voice, under circumstances which defied the probability 
of collusion or imposture, and with a power and spirituality 
of tone and presence acknowledged by all who heard them 
to have been trulj^ sublime and authoritative. 

The communications given by these spirits orally were 
transcribed by those present, and subsequently corrected 
by themselves — others were written by spirit hands in the 
presence of many witnesses, or found in locked drawers. 
From the MSS. preserved of these wonderful writings, the 
history of the Athens County manifestations are elaborate- 
ly described in Harding eh Twenty Years' History of Modern 
American Spiritualism^ and it is from the pages of this highly 
authentic work that we submit the following excerpt. 

The author says: 

" These spirits declare that ' there is an electric element, divided through 
space by another element, which bears no afl&nity to it; that spirits, at least such 
as communicate with earth, cannot themselves penetrate this interior element; 
in fact, to their apprehension, no one in the universe can do so, save only God ; 
and this mysterious innermost, with all its hidden and impenetrable glories, is 
called by spirits the ' subter fluid.' They declare that the electric element forms 
the various paths in which planets and all other known bodies in space travel and 
move in their respective orbits, but that nothing visible to spirits, or comprehen- 
sible to them as of an organic nature, can penetrate the realms of the ' subter 
fluid/ yet it divides and permeates all space, and seems to hold in control the infi- 
nite realms of the electric element. Rays of light,' however, they say, 'can and 
do penetrate the ' subter fluid,' as they appear to issue from and return to it inces- 
santly.' Also, ' There is a grand central territory in the universe, known to exist 
by all spirits, and in all worlds. It embraces illimitable though unknown realms ; 
yet its position as a vast central point is defined, from the fact that from thence, 
and to thence, seem to tend all the illimitable lines of attraction, gravitation, and 
force, which connect terrestrial bodies, and link together firmaments teeming with 
lives and systems. All the innumerable firmaments, spangled with an infinitude 
of solar and astral systems, seem to revolve around, and derive attractive and liv- 



38 

iug forces from this unkuowu centre. Sometimes it is called 'the Celestial 
Realm.' Again ' The Central Sun/ ' Heaven,.' ' God,' ' The Infinite Eealm/ ' The 
Eternal Life !' While firmaments thickly sown with suns and revolving satel- 
lites, appear but as specks of light in comparison with the inconceivable vastness 
of this celestial laboratory, invisible and boundless as it is, from which flows out, 
through all universes, the centrifugal and centripetal forces of being." 

In Cahagnet's Celestial Telegraphy several spirits, commu- 
nicating through celebrated Somnambules, startled their 
hearer's preconceived opinions on the subject of Deity, by 
affirming positively that he was seen and known by highly 
exalted angels as a Grand Central Spiritual Sun. 

Through the ecstatic Bruno it was asked — " Do angels, 
such as you describe your Guardian Gabriel to be, see 
God ?" A. " Yes." Q. " In what form V A. " In that 
of the Sun." Q. ^' Is it our terrestrial Sun V A. '' No ; 
there is in the heaven of heavens but one Sun, which is 
the Spiritual Sun, the form in which God appears. Our 
terrestrial sun is but the reflection of the rays dispensed 
from the great Central Spiritual Sun, which is God." 

The Hindoo Child Seeress Sanonia, heretofore referred 
to, also affirmed, when in ecstatico, at the tender age of 
five years, when her inflmt mind had never been impressed 
with one single idea of theology, that the God of the uni- 
verse was a Spiritual Sun, whilst all the suns and stars, 
visible or invisible to the naked eye, derived their light 
and heat oijly from Him. When questioned by Sir James 
Mackintosh, the eminent astronomer, whether the sun of 
our solar system was not an incandescent body, and the 
originator of all the light and heat received by his satellites, 
she emphatically denied that it was so, and exposed, with 
wonderful acumen, in her lisping, child-like tone, but with 
penetrating scientific arguments, the fallacies of those as- 
tronomers who endeavor to defend the incandescent theory 
of the sun's body. 

This youthful ecstatic affirmed that all the light and 



39 

heat in the universe proceeded from the great Central 
Spiritual Sun, and was reflected from thence to every body 
in space, according to its size, situation, and the energy 
of the centrifugal and centripetal forces operating between 
suns, satellites, and systems. 

During an unbroken system of communion, extending 
over a period of nearly half a century, between the author 
of these pages and spirits of various degrees — during per- 
ceptions of angelic spheres observed by his liberated spirit 
amongst the realms of the wise and blest, similar testimony 
to the existence of a Deity who is no mystery to His crea- 
tures, has been rendered. 

It seems strange, and not in the order of the Providen- 
tial scheme, that the one sole mystery of the universe 
should be the Being most capable of originating revela- 
tion, namely, a First Great Cause. But has this Supreme 
One been a mystery from the beginning ] or would He 
have continued so, if man, in his egotism and pride, had 
not flattered himself with the assumption that subordinate 
beings, tutelary spirits, and even specially inspired men, 
were the real Gods of the Universe, condescending to come 
and minister in person to humanity 1 Did not the first 
men of the earth, fresh in their primitive inspiration from 
Deity, rightly apprehend Him in the beginning 1 Have 
not the Prophets. Seers, Magians, Mystics, and modern 
Ecstatics, ever perceived and known God in gleams of the 
original brightness, dimmed by ages of materialism, and 
perverted by gloomy, earth-made theologies 1 Wherever 
the voices of the angels find reverberating echoes in human 
inspiration, there this Great Mystery of God is solved in 
the revealment of the uncreated, self-existent, infinite, 
and eternal Spiritual Sun, from which emanate, and to 
which return, all rays of life, light, heat, germinative, 
creative, and sustaining: power. 



40 

Wherever we see the people of earth straying away in 
search of human idols, striving to discover in their God 
man-made, man-shaped, and man-like personalities ; 
wherever we see an interested, ignorant and selfish priest- 
hood, enslaved by their own passions and prejudices, aim- 
ing to keep the people enslaved to their opinions — there 
look to find the face of the Infinite veiled in mystery ; the 
truths of Godhead, natural science and spiritual inspira- 
tion crowded back into the realms of mystery ; and mys- 
tery, the mother of all abominations, setting up idols for 
human worship, which change with the customs of the 
age and the fashion of the hour. To drown the voice of 
Spiritual science, and that reason which insists that the 
most obvious existence in Creation must be Creation's 
Author, the epithets of " Pagan, Heathen, Infidel, Heretic, 
Fire Worshipper and Blasphemer " have been shouted 
through the highways of lifers common places, and still 
echo in our ears even in this analytical nineteenth century ; 
for the rule of Mysteey, Babylon the Great, The Mother 
OF Harlots and Abominations of the Earth, is not yet bro- 
ken, and until it is, her votaries will fight for her, and per- 
ish soul and body for her ; and all the while the light will 
be " shining in the darkness, though the darkness compre- 
hendeth it not." 

Man, in his primitive appearance on earth, came only 
as a poor, untutored savage, the mere form of the being he 
was to become — only a prophecy of the Lord of Creation 
he should be. As he emerged from savagism to the dawn 
of an intellectual morning, the perception of his descent 
from an antecedent sphere of spiritual existence possessed 
his memory, and a perception of his return to that blest 
state of purity and happiness inspired his power of pre- 
vision. 

His gradually awakening intellect taught him to analyze 



41 

and understand himself. Casting about for the causes of 
existence, the supports on which it rested and the aims 
for which he lived, man dedicated all his earliest powers 
of mind to religion. Even his earliest triumphs in the 
arts of civilization were but used as means to the one end. 
His superb temples of worship, hig" solemn preparations 
for another life, and his colossal monumental records of 
his religious beliefs, remain almost imperishable evidences 
of his deep and undivided interest in the problems of re- 
ligion ; whilst of his social and commercial pursuits, only 
the most fragmentary and unimportant vestiges can be 
found. India, Egypt, Arabia, the recesses of the mighty 
Himalayas and the giant Koh Kas, the lovely vales and 
smiling plains of Asia — vales blooming like glimpses of 
the fabled Eden, and savage wilds, deserted now, desolate 
and ruined — all bear witness to the unquenchable devotion 
of the early man to his religious belief; all are thickly 
strewn over with colossal remains of that stupendous 
system in which that belief found expression. The 
burning lands of the Orient are one vast Bible overwritten 
with distinct asseverations that to the early man God was 
not the Unknowable, and religious faith was no mystery. 
Whence came this faith if not from man's intuitive knowl- 
edge, and the obvious facts of creation ? Sun, moon, stars, 
the constellated glories of the heavens, their eternal order 
and their majestic march through infinity — these were 
scriptures in which the natural instincts of an unspoiled 
nature recognized God's own writing, and interpreted it 
without failure or effort. 

The ancient man did not vainly exhaust his intellect to 
discover God. Untrammelled by creeds, unfettered hy 
priestcraft and unbiased by inherited predjudices, he did 
not seek God, he simply found him — knew him in the love 
which engende life ; the wisdom that sustains it ; the 



42 

power that upholds it — knew him in the sacred flame, which 
is heat ; the splendor of light, which is revelation. He 
discovered the reflection of his dwelling-place in the 
majesty of the blazing sun, and perceived his own destiny 
— God's Providence and Nature's profoundest harmonies 
— in the constellated paths of the starry heavens, and the 
movements of the fiery legions of space. 

Priestcraft, Kingcraft, Artificial Civilization, with their 
long train of crime and disease, want and woe — an over- 
strained devotion to the idols of ecclesiasticism and physi- 
cal science, have alienated the soul of man from pure, 
natural, spiritual religion, interrupted the precious com- 
munion which pure, spiritual natures alone can enjoy with 
angelic spheres of existence, and driven the soul off into 
the baneful mysticisms of idolatrous faiths or blank ma- 
terialism. 

It is a hopeful and significant sign to behold the spiritual 
standards once more set up on earth. It is a hopeful and 
significant fact to note how the best of the modern Seers 
tend towards ancient faith in the Divine Spiritual Law as 
the Author and Centre of being, and the prophecy of a bet- 
ter, more truthful, just and reasonable theology is continual- 
ly renewing itself in the air, as the lips of the most inspired 
teachers of the time re-affirm the sublime utterances of 
old : " God is a Spirit, and they who worship him, must 
worship him in spirit and in truth." 



43 

SECTION IV. 

Ezekiel's Wheel. 




Macroeosmos Ascending. y -O—^ Turning -Poitit Libra 



Mici'ocosnios Descending. 

Of the most Ancient Form of War ship — The Astronomical 
Religion, or the Sabean System — Solar and Astral Gods. 

The shelves of any ordinary sized library could be en- 
tirely filled with fragments of literature concerning the 
worship of the ancients, and the peculiar character of those 
myths which have been preserved from the remotest days 
of antiquity, and now underlie all the present systems of 
theological belief. It is a remarkable fact that, notwith- 
standing the vast collection of writings extant on this sub- 
ject, there is no one compendious and accessible text-book 
from which the masses generally could derive reliable 
information and assimilate the knowledge thus widely 
diffused ; and it is no less worthy of observation that, 
whilst the mythical character of early worship is stamped 
with unmistakable fidelity upon every form of modern the- 
ology, this damaging fact seems to make no difference in 
the idolatrous veneration with which the modern worship- 



44 

er clings to the items of his faith ; on the contrary, whilst 
the evidence accumulates around him, that the ideas to 
which he renders divine homage are paraphrases of an- 
cient fictions, he all the more sturdily battles for his idol, 
and denounces every attempt to shake the authenticity of 
legends which he translates into divine revelations. 

Perhaps it is for want of an authentic text-book ; per- 
haps because the literature of the subject is too widely 
diffused and broken up into too many scattered fragments, 
that this apathy of idolatry prevails so universally, and 
that the common sense and intelligence of the nineteenth 
century is contented to bow down with purse and person 
before lifeless husks from which the spirit has departed ; 
the husks which at best only contained in their original 
form the spirit of an impersonated myth. 

It is not for the sake of converting one single idolator 
of the nineteenth century that we now write. It is not 
with the desire of proving to a.ny sincere worshipper of 
the name of Christ that he is adoring the Sun-God of the 
ancients, that we now collect the torn fragments of the 
great Osiric body, and present a concrete, though necessa- 
rily microscopic view of the original structure. When 
the idolatries of fire-worship have done their work, their 
perversions will die the natural death which the divine 
order of the universe demands ; until that time arrives we 
write for the truth's sake alone; let who will accept or re- 
ject us. Truth is " the Master's word," which unlocks all 
mysteries, furnishes the clue to all religious beliefs, under- 
lies the magical history of the race, and therefore its free 
enunciation is demanded in this work. 

At what period the early man first commenced to wor- 
ship the starry host of heaven, or in what nation the germ 
was first planted of that stupendous system which over- 
laid the earth with temples, and survived all the wrecks 



45 

of chance, change, and time, none can say. We find the 
manifestation of its completeness only when humanity had 
acquired the art of recording its opinons in picture writ- 
ing, symbolical engravings, hieroglyphical and alphabet- 
ical Scriptures. 

Traditions come wafted down the ages on the tongues 
of men with an impress as authoritative as graven Scrip- 
tures ; for, ere men had learned to record their thoughts, 
they depended on memory for their preservation ; hence 
they cultivated and strengthened this faculty, held its in- 
tegrity sacred, and hence the perpetuity and universality 
of oral traditions. 

Tradition affirms that when the mind of man rose out 
of the lethargy of savagism to the dawn of reason, and 
became tired with all those anxious inquisitions into the 
nature of cause and effect which reason prompts, he began 
to perceive that all the grand machinery of nature was 
coincident with the apparition and disappearance of the 
resplendent lights which spangled the canopy of the over- 
arching heavens. The God whom his earliest perceptions 
recognized in the majestic Sun, was unquestionably the 
source of those climactric changes which formed the prin- 
cipal theme of his primal studies. 

To cultivate the ground, feed and protect his flocks, and 
determine the best times to perform the simple duties of 
agriculturist and herdsman, it became necessary to study 
the succession of the seasons, and consider not only the 
familiar alternations of night and day, but the equally im- 
portant order which marked the changes in tides and times, 
together with all the variations of climate, and their effects 
in heat and cold. 

None could fail to observe that every change on the face 
of nature kept step with the succession of certain solar 
and astral phenomena. 



46 

From the early dawn of these perceptions, up to the 
maturity of the stupendous astronomical religion, man 
learned to read the fiery Scriptures of the skies, and the 
ever mobile face of nature, with a profound depth of un- 
derstanding. 

How many ages it required to outwork a complete the- 
ology from the book of nature and the starry heavens, man 
may never determine. 

Thought grows fast or slowly, according to the amount 
of momentum that is imparted to it The world is very 
old in relation to that succession of changes we call time. 

Millions of years have been consumed in laying down 
the rocky walls that extend from the circumference to the 
interior of the earth's crust. It occupied the world build- 
ers untold ages to develop a spear of moss, or a tuft of 
lichen, from a mass of primary granite. Time is nothing 
in the issues of divine purposes ; a second or a billion of 
years are but indices on the dial-plates which mark the 
rounds of eternal progress, and since the first human wor- 
shipper veiled his adoring eyes in the passion of his soul's 
communion with the Spirit who dwells in the orbs of 
primal light, up to the age when reverend scholarly men 
were set apart by the busy multitude to watch the order of 
marching worlds from the high towers of the early " epis- 
copacy," many successions of times, seasons, generations and 
ages had come and gone. The constellated heavens had 
been studied out ; charts had been drawn ; numerical 
Bibles written. The starry legions had been divided into 
geometrical proportions, and their motions calculated with 
mathematical precision. Even the forward movement of 
the entire solar system around what science now asserts 
to be an undiscovered but inevitable centre, had been per- 
ceived, and the precession of the equinoxes was under- 
stood. The whole grand scheme, involving the awful 



47 

majesty of the Sun-Grod, the mild radiance of the moon, 
the glory of the fixed stars, the erratic motions of the wan- 
dering planets, the terrific apparition of fiery comets, flash- 
ing meteors, and the deep and unfathomable mystery of float- 
ing nebulse — all these, no less than their influence upon 
the fair, green earth, with its lofty mountains and shore- 
less seas, its sombre forests and quiet vales, its half-savage, 
half- divine inhabitants — all this realm of power and mys- 
tery, sublimity and littleness, solemn silence and rest- 
less eloquence, the ancient mind discovered, by thousands 
of years of patient and untiring study, to he all in motion — 
motion of one continuous and correspondential order — mo- 
tion which swept '' the heavens, and the earth, and all that 
in them is," through regions of space, unknown and unknow- 
able, but still defined to the piercing intelligence of the 
astronomical priesthood as one grand and interblended 
universe of Love, Wisdom and Power. 

From the results of our forefathers' sublime discoveries, 
from the mass of varied records they have left, and the 
fragmentary collections that we have gathered up of their 
wisdom, we give in the following pages a brief and most 
imperfect compendium of their religious belief. It is only 
necessary to consult the diagram of the heavens, as mapped 
out on any common almanac, school atlas or celestial globe, 
to perceive that the apparent path of the sun is laid down 
in an imaginary waving track called the Ecliptic. This 
path ( assuming, as did the ancients, that the sun moves 
around the earth), crosses the equator or fanciful belt en- 
circling the earth at two periods of time, which, by the 
relative positions of the sun towards the earth, divide up 
the solar year into winter and summer, and place the sun 
in the aspect of south and north towards the earth. 

The path of the sun on the Ecliptic was defined by an- 
cient astronomers between two lines, parallel to each other. 



48 

sixteen degrees apart, the sun's march being between 
them. 

This space was, and still is, called the Zodiac. The 
Zodiacal circle was divived into three hundred and sixty 
degrees, these again into four right angles of ninety 
degrees each, and the whole into twelve signs, consisting 
each of thirty degrees. 

These signs were, with the ancients, arbitrary divisions 
of certain groups of stars called constellations. They were 
named chiefly in accordance with the climactric changes 
transpiring on the earth at the period when the sun was 
passing through them. 

In January, now called the first month ot the year, the 
sun passed through the constellation or group of stars 
called, from the season of storms and heavy rains that then 
prevail, Aquarius, the washer, or the Greek Baptizo. In 
February he enters the sign of Pices, or the Fishes, a time 
of famine, dearth, and distress, when the fruits and roots 
are consumed, and little is left to the primitive man but the 
spoil of the accumulating waters. 

In March the sun enters Aries the Lamb, significant 
of the young and tender products of the approaching 
Spring. In April, when the energy of the agricultural sea- 
son is to be typified, the constellated group through which 
the sun passes is called the Bull. In May, when Summer 
and Winter are reconciled, and the sweet genial period of 
flowers and bloom seem to knit up the opposing seasons 
in fraternal harmony, the constellation then prevailing is ' 
called Gemini, or the Twins. In June, when the sun ap- 
pears to undergo a retrograde motion significants explained 
in astronomy, the sign in the ascendant is termed Can- 
cer, or the Crab. In July, the raging heat of the burning 
Summer suggests for the ascendant sign the significant ti- 
tle of the Lion, whilst the Virgin of August, the Scales of 



49 

September, the Scorpion or great Dragon of October, the 
Archer of November, and the Goat of December, are sup- 
posed to have somewhat more direct reference to fancied 
resemblances in the shapes of the constellations, than for 
the physical correspondence between their names and the 
climactric conditions of the earth.. Besides these subdivi- 
sions of the Zodiacal path, there were two other methods 
of marking the astronomical year. The first was the divi- 
sion of the whole twelve months into four seasons, each of 
which contained ninety degrees, and were symbolized by 
a special emblem, as — an Ox, a Lion, an Eagle, and a Man. 
The Ox denoted the agricultural pursuits of the Spring, 
the Lion the fierce heat of Summer, the Eagle was adopt- 
ed for certain symbolical reasons as a substitute for the 
Scorpion of Autumn, and the Man was still retained as 
the Winter emblem of Aquarius, or the water-bearer. Add- 
ed to this quaternial division of the year, were the two 
primal and opposing conditions of Summer and Winter, 
always held significant by the ancients of good and evil 
principles. 

The most solemn and important periods of the astro- 
nomical year were, when the Sun descended from the North 
at the close of Summer, to cross the plane of the autumnal 
equinox, and that when he ascended from the South in the 
Spring to crossthe vernal equinox. The first motion herald- 
ed death to the great light-bringer, famine and desolation to 
the earth ; the second inaugurated the rejuvenating power of 
his triumph and glory in the promise of Spring, and the 
fulfillment of Summer. 

Slight as seems this foundation for a theology, it is on 
this only, that the superstructure of every theological sys- 
tem of the earth has been upreared. . 

Besides the general titles assigned to the twelve Zodiacal 
constellations, each separate star visible in the heavens, 



50 

had its name, and was supposed to exert an influence pe- 
culiar to itself for good or evil upon mankind. Thus all 
the stars through the plane of, or near which the sun 
passed in Summer were deemed to be beneficent and in 
harmony with the celestial traveller of the skies, favorable 
also to the inhabitants of earth to whom they aided in dis- 
pensing seed-time and harvest, fruits, flowers, and all man- 
ner of blessings. On the other hand, the stars of Winter 
were assumed to exert a malignant influence not only on 
the mighty Sun-God, whom they opposed, but also upon 
man and his planet, causing storms, tempests, pestilence, 
and famine. By these malignant astral influences the gra- 
cious Sun was shorn of his heat-dispensing powers, and the 
hours of his illumination upon earth were shortened. The 
majesty of Day was so obscured by the hosts of malignant 
Spirits, supposed to inhabit the wintry stars, that he vainly 
strove to contend against them. On the opposing spiritual 
forces inhabiting the Summer and Winter constellations, 
was founded the apocalyptic legend of " the war in Heaven^'' 
and endless flights of visionary astronomical myths. 

In this celestial scheme every star became a symbol of 
some good or evil genius ; every constellation was a realm, 
peopled by innumerable legions of beneficent or malig- 
nant angels, and the entire field of the sidereal heavens 
was made the battle-ground of infinite squadrons of oppos- 
ing angelic influences. 

On earth the solar year was mapped out into grand sub- 
divisions of time, in which the impersonated stars and their 
rival influences enacted a mighty drama with the Sun-God 
for its hero, the inhabitants of earth for an adoring audi- 
ence, and a royal astronomical priesthood for its historians. 

These ancient priest, scalled from their custom of 
studying the face of the heavens from high watch towers, 
Episcopacy — became in ages of practice familiar with 



51 

every phase of the sublime epic they wrote. They occu- 
pied centuries in correcting their calendar,-; and amending 
their Zodiacal charts. They invented thousands and tens 
of thousands of allegorical fables descriptive of the scenes^ 
incidents, and angelic personages of the celestial drama. 
They varied names, images, and symbols to suit the pro- 
gress of ideas in revolving ages, and invested their astral 
Gods with all the attributes which fervent Oriental fancy 
could suggest. 

As an example of the leading ideas which prevailed 
throughout this stupendous system, it is proper to recite 
some of the main features which clustered around the sup- 
postitious history of the magnificent Sun-God. When this 
light-bringing luminary entered the sign of Aries, or the 
Lamb, in March, he was assumed to have crossed the ver- 
nal equinox and become the Redeemer of the world from 
the sufferings and privations of Winter. Then the earth 
and its inhabitants rejoiced greatly. The young Saviour 
had entered upon his divine mission, bringing the earth 
out of darkness into light ; miraculously healing the sick ; 
feeding starving multitudes; and filling the world with 
blessing. 

This triumphant career culminated to its fullest glory 
between the months of July and August, which, in the 
figurative language of the astronomical religion, was 
sometimes called the betrothal of the Virgin, — sometimes 
the marriage feast of the Lion, of July, and the Virgin, of 
August. This was the season of the grape harvest, the 
time when the Sun converted, by his radiant heat, the 
waters which had desolated the earth in Winter, into the 
luscious wine of the vintage. Then it was, as the ancient 
astronomers proclaimed, that the great miracle of the solar 
year was performed, and the Sun manifested forth his most 
triumphant glory. 



From thence the constellation of the Scales, or the Bal- 
ances, seemed for a time to maintain the celestial hero in a 
just and even path ; his miraculous power and life-giving 
presence was hailed with feasts and rejoicings, which lasted 
until the fatal period when the Great Dragon of the Skies, 
the mighty Scorpio, of October, appears in the ascendant. 
Then sorrow and lamentation possessed the earth. The 
Saviour of men must cross the autumnal equinox, and from 
thence descend into the South — the Hades, Acheron, Sheol. 
Hell, Pit, of many ancient nations. 

To announce the dire calamity at hand, the Dragon, of 
October, is preceded by a bright and glorious star called in 
the spring Vesper, or the evening star ; in Autumn, Luci- 
fer, or '' the Son of the morning." In the sweet vernal 
season, this splendid luminary is the herald of Summer, 
the brightest and most beautiful of all the heavenly host. 
Then it appears high in the heavens, and occupies what is 
significantly called the seat of pride. Appearing in the 
boding season of Autumn, low on the edge of the horizon, and 
shining only in the early dawn, its name is changed with its 
station — it is now the fallen Angel ; the mighty rebel, 
whom, seduced by pride and vaulting ambition, has been 
dethroned and cast down to the ominous depths of the 
lowest hell. Transformed into Lucifer, " Son of the morn- 
ing," this star becomes the herald of the darkest ill that 
can beset the path of the celestial Saviour. As it appears 
in advance of the great constellation of the Dragon, it is 
assumed to be the rebel Angel that incited " a third of 
the host of heaven to disobedience ;" hence it is often con- 
founded with the Dragon, of which, however, it is only the 
prototype. 

The constellation of the great Dragon is the most pow- 
erful of the entire Zodiac. From its peculiar form, and the 
immense group of shining stars that extend in the convo- 



53 

lutions of its resplendent train, it has been called the Starry 
Serpent of the Skies. Its attendant luminaries are as- 
sumed to be that third of the host of heaven seduced by 
the rebel Angel from their allegiance, and its position as 
the inaugural constellation of the much-dreaded wintry 
season impresses upon it the ominous name of Satan, or 
the adversary. And thus, from the position of a group of 
stars, and their apparition in the season deemed fatal to the 
prosperity of earth and its inhabitants, has arisen that 
stupendous myth, that legend of world-wide fear, the 
suppostitious existence of an incarnate spirit of evil ; the 
Satan of the Persians ; the Typhon of Egypt ; the Pluto 
of the Greeks ; the old Serpent of the Jews ; and the most 
popular of all objects of alternate fear and worship, the 
Devil of the enlightened Christians. 

Following up the astronomical legend, we find the great 
Dragon of October waging its annual war against the Sun- 
God. By the influence of its leader, Lucifer, the celestial 
Sun-God has already been put to death in his crossification 
of the autumnal equinox ; from thence he is cast down 
into the power of the two evil months — November and 
December — who are crucified with him on the autumnal 
equinox. 

It is just at midwinter when Capricorn, the goat — signi- 
fying in ancient mythical language the renewer of life — 
is in the ascendant, that the Sun-God reappears as a new- 
born babe. 

In the fanciful imaginings of the astronomical historians, 
the cluster of stars which appear in the midwinter sky 
bear a resemblance to a manger or stable, whilst the fertile 
minds of the " episcopacy " discover the reappearance of the 
Virgin of Summer, with her companion, Bootes, or the con- 
stellation called Joseppe, or J oseph. For three days at mid- 
winter the feeble radiance of the Sun appears to remain sta- 



54 

tionary, yet so greatly obscured, that the legend declares 
he descends to the nethermost parts of the universe and is 
lost to sight. 

In the Greek theology this three days of solar obscura- 
tion is accounted for by the descent of Orpheus into the 
realms of Pluto, where, by the magic of his sweet music, 
he is supposed to rescue lost souls from the very jaws of 
Hades. In the astronomical legend the vanished God is 
represented as going on a mission of mercy, to illuminate 
with his radiance the darkened souls who have been held 
captive in the realms of perdition. At length, on the 25th 
day of December, he reappears, and amidst the figurative 
paraphernalia of constellated stars then in the ascendant, 
he is declared to have been born in a manger through the 
maternity of the Zodiacal Virgin. 

The women who have wept for Tammuz, the Syrian 
Sun-God, the mourners who have lamented with Isis for 
the Egyptian Osiris, the Greeks who have wandered with 
Ceres in search of the lost Proserpina, the devotees who 
have wailed for the slain Chrishna, one of the Sun-Gods of 
the Hindoos, and the Marys who weep at the sepul- 
chre for the Christ of the Jews, all the nations of antiqui- 
ty, throughout the Orient — each of whom, under many 
names and in many forms, have adored the Sun-God, and 
believed in his annual birth, life, miracles, death and resur- 
rection — all have united to celebrate the new birth of their 
idol on the 25th of December, the period at which the 
solar orb actually passes through the constellation of the 
Zodiacal sign Capricorn, or " the renewer of life." After 
the 25th of December, the legend again loses sight of its 
new-born Saviour. 

In all Eastern theogonies Egypt is represented as the 
land of darkness and the symbol of obscm-ity. During the 
prevalence of the two constellations of January and Feb- 



65 

ruary, it is supposed that antagonistic influences threaten 
the young child's life. The royal power of Winter, with 
its storms and tempests, is in the ascendant, hence the 
world's Redeemer is in danger from a mighty King. To 
avert the evil, the young child is carried by stealth to 
the land of Egypt ; there in concealment he remains until 
the season of danger is passed, when he re-crosses the equa- 
tor at the vernal equinox, ascending from the southern 
depth of Egypt into the light and glory of an acknowl- 
edged worker of miracles. Again the earth rejoices in the 
presence of the young Lamb of spring, who " taketh away 
the sins of the world," and redeems it from the famine, 
desolation and evils of the past Winter. From this time 
forth the Sun-God proclaims "peace on earth, and good will 
to men," and fulfills his promise in miracles of healing, 
feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and bringing life 
and plenty to all. 

On taking a retrospective glance at this famous myth, 
it will be seen that the Sun-God is its central figure, and 
his passage through the constellated stars of the Zodiac, 
together with the peculiar changes of atmosphere, climate, 
and natural productions effected on earth by solar and as- 
tral configurations, form the connected woof of the celestial 
drama. 

Next in importance in the mythical history, is the im- 
personation of the Virgin Mother of the Sun-God. This 
constellated figure is assumed to hold in her hand a sprig, 
flower, or fruit, which she extends in the attitude of invi- 
tation to a minor constellation, named Bootes, Jo-seppe or 
Joseph, who from its proximity to the Virgin of Summer, 
is sometimes impersonated as her betrothed, sometimes as 
the Father of men, Adam, yielding to the seductions of 
Eve, tempting him by the extended fruit she holds in 
her hand. The next, and not least important figure in the 



56 

legend, is the impersonation of the evening star of Spring, 
transformed from an angel of light into Lucifer, the leader 
of the rebel hosts, and the morning star of Autumn. 

This evil star is followed by another important actor in 
the Astral Drama, namely, the great Dragon, the antago- 
nistic power of all systems, by whom the beneficent Sun- 
God is put to death on the cross of the autumnal equinox ; 
crucified between the two evil wintry constellations pre- 
vailing in November and December. According to an an- 
cient Sabean tradition, one of these evil angels, symbolized 
by the Goat of December, repented him of the wrong done 
to the sinless God who was crucified with him, hence he 
becomes at first the hoary sign of Winter, the Goat, who 
participates in the death of the beloved Sun, and then the 
friend of the dying God, sheltering him in his manger, and 
protecting the fruitful Virgin in her hour of parturition. 
This phase of the legend, like thousands of others, is doubt- 
less an attempt to reconcile the antagonistic characteristics 
of the wintry sign, during which the Sun is lost, with the 
favorable aspect of the same constellation in the last part 
of his month of power, when he is represented as ushering 
the new-born God into being, under the title of the re- 
newer of life. 

Endless are the fantasies of this kind interwoven with 
the Zodiacal legend. The discoveries of each succeeding age 
afforded to the astronomical priesthood a boundless field 
for the exercise of their favorite method of symbolical ex- 
pression, thus, whilst we always find the main ideas of the 
scheme preserved intact, the divergent branches of ideality 
which spring forth from the parent root are in truth a re- 
alization of the parable of the mustard seed of the Jewish 
Scriptures. In the paraphrase of the Christian history of 
the Sun-God, the writers represent one of the thieves cru- 
cified with the Saviour of mankind as becoming penitent 



57 

at the last dread hour of death — Jesus, in allusion to his 
approaching new birth, answers him, " to-day shalt thou he 
with me in Paradise.^'' This is a highly ingenious and 
creditable mode of disposing of the difficulty which ancient 
astronomers experienced in representing the constellation 
of December at once antagonistic and favorable to the 
dying God. The Capricorn of Winter shares the Sun-God's 
evil fate, but becomes favorable to him in the hour of his 
new birth in " Paradise." We have now brought the 
legend up to that point when it is to recommence with the 
renewal of the Zodiacal history. 

The Sun of righteousness is now to be re-born in the 
stable of the Goat, through the maternity of the immaculate 
Virgin, and thus the light of the world, the Lamb of Spring, 
the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the good master of the twelve 
Zodiacal Apostles, is ever sacrificed, that he may take away 
the sins of the world, and ever restored to life, that all 
may have hope of immortality in his resurrection, etc., 
etc., etc. 

It would indeed be " vanity and vexation of spirit" to 
attempt to discover the exact order in which the antique 
mind first clothed the starry heavens with these fantastic 
symbolisms, and yet we must not suppose that the exoteric 
meaning of which we have given a brief sketch, is the all 
of 'this ancient and most wonderful faith. Later on in this 
volume we shall see that every symbol has a correspond- 
ential spiritual meaning, and that the esoteric philosophy 
veiled under this mass of symbolism is the real heart of its 
religious significance. These explanations, however, we 
must reserve for the present. How the ancients ultimate- 
ly evolved an exoteric scheme from the external face of 
nature and its correspondential relations to the spangled 
heavens, can be no marvel to those who will consider their 
wisest and best minds as devoted, during the course of thou- 



58 

sands of years, to this one grand field of observation. The 
origin, growth, and perfection of such a system is far less 
problematical than is the conduct of modern theologians in 
reference to it. So long as the famous astronomical reli- 
gion was practiced and taught amongst those nations whom 
Christians contemptuously denominate " the heathen," it 
was denounced by them as the vilest of idolatries, but at 
the point where they attempt to build up a theology of 
their own^ they first begin by stealing the astronomical 
mj^th, then transpose its origin to a far later date, re- 
christen its personages, locate them in fresh birth-places, 
declare them to be genuine personalities, invest them with 
the most sacred names and attributes, fall down and wor- 
ship them, and then call upon the name of the Most High 
God as a witness to the credibility of their audacious fic- 
tions, 

In consideration of the vast and cumulative mass of tes- 
timony which the discoveries of archaeology and philology 
supply us with, concerning the foundation of all theolog- 
ical systems, the idolatry of the nineteenth century puts to 
shame the devotion of humanity's infancy to myth and 
mysticism. 

The antique man would blush for the mendacity of the 
modern Priesthood, who not only steal the images of their 
forefathers' creation, but, re-clothing them with the tinsel 
and varnish of ecclesiastical trumpery, set them up in 
shrines to worship as the legitimate offspring of divine in- 
spiration. 

With those who have dared to dispute the authenticity 
of these monstrous fabrications, the Christian world has 
offered no other arguments than fire and sword, torture and 
denunciation ; and as the culminating point of the mon- 
strous wrong which modern Priestcraft has perpetrated on 
the people, by foisting on them the myths of antiquity as 



59 

genuine subjects for worship, it hesitates not to affix the 
awful name of that God who is a Spirit^ not only, as above 
stated, in witness of their blasphemous plagiarisms, but as 
an actual participator in a Drama which, if removed from 
the realm of myth to actuality, would subvert every law of 
reason, decency, justice, or morality, that has ever been 
promulgated since time began. 

We commenced this section by affirming that if all the 
fragments that have been written on the history of the 
Sun-God and the order of the astronomical religion were 
gathered together, they would fill a library. 

Our only regret is, that the present hour does not fur- 
nish us with the opportunity to give to the world a thorough 
but compendious aggregation of these severed fragments in 
one concrete body of testimony. We can only glance at 
them now ; but we may not altogether omit to notice them, 
for, ere we can describe the origin, progress and develop- 
ment of the spiritual idea of which Art Magic is, in part, 
the external form, we must give the outlines of that reli- 
gious system in which the human spirit took shape, as in a 
matrix ; in which its conceptions were first unfolded, and 
from which its aspirations radiated forth in the insatiate 
demand for spiritual bread. At this present writing, we 
only feel justified in raising the veil sufficiently to show 
the first point of contact between God and Man, the Cre- 
ator and the Creature, Religion the Body, and Spiritualism 
the Soul of the Universe ; but we reserve to ourselves the 
duty (God inspiring and mortal span of life permitting) of 
inscribing a volume in the future, wherein shall be shown, 
in its completeness, how the Teraphim of the ancients were 
fashioned, and how the moderns have stolen and worshipped 
them : when, and in what mode, ideas descended to man 
in the past from the starry heavens, and in what absurd 
perversions the Priesthood of the present endeavor to plant 



60 

those ideas in divine soil, until the abomination of deso- 
lation sits in the holy places of human thought, and scien- 
tific, reasoning men, and pious, pure-minded women, wor- 
ship a God whose example, if imitated, would fill the earth 
with monsters of injustice, impurity and wickedness. 



SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION IV. 

SJioioing the Nations of Antiquity that have worshipped 
the Sun-God as an Impersonation, and accepted Jiis 
history as displayed in the astronomical order of 
tlie Starry Heavens. 

The Hindoos — the oldest nation that possesses scriptural 
as well as monumental records, dating back to the highest 
antiquity, even to pre-historic ages — believed in one Su- 
preme Omnific Central Source of Being, and from Him 
descending emanations corresponding in many respects to 
the mythical personages of the astronomical religion. 

The biographies of two of their principal Avatars or in- 
carnated God-men, Chrishna and Buddha Sakia, are closely 
accordant with the history of the Sun-God. The births of 
these Avatars through the motherhood of a pure Virgin, 
their lives in infancy threatened by a vengeful king, 
their flight and concealment in Egypt, their return to work 
miracles, save, heal and redeem the world, suffer persecu- 
tion, a violent death, a descent into tiell, and a reappear- 
ance as a new-born Saviour, are all items of the Sun-God's 
history, which have already been recited, and maintain in 
every detail the correspondence between the Hindoo faith 
and the Sabean system. The feasts, fasts, seasons of la- 
mentation and rejoicing, the reverence paid to fire, flame, 
heat, light, and even the minutest details of ceremonial 
rites practiced in the most ancient astronomical worship, 
are scattered through the varying forms of Hindoo theolo- 



' 



61 

gy, until the parity of the two systems cannot be ques- 
tioned. An equally faithful adherence to the Sabean 
legend is to be found in the story of the Indian Dyonisius, 
subsequently repeated in Egypt, and forming the basis of 
the Osiric legend. 

Egypt taught the Sun-God's history, and that in a series 
of myths and mysteries still more elaborate than those of 
India. 

The stories of 'Osiris, Isis, Horus and Typhon, are di- 
rect transcripts of the astronomical scheme. The myths 
of the Gods Zulis and Memnon, the worship of Heliopolis, 
the gorgeous order of the famous mysteries, and the mythi- 
cal personages scattered throughout the wonderful woof of 
Egyptian Theogony, are but elaborations of the Zodiacal 
fable, and the worship of the powers of nature. 

The sublime system of Zoroaster recites the history of 
the Sun-God in that of Mithra, finds in Arimanes, the 
great Dragon of the skies, and in all the sacred times and 
seasons, ceremonials and traditions, a complete transcript 
of the astronomical religion. 

The Chaldeans, Ethiopians, Phoenicians and the most 
settled of the Arabian tribes, taught the same basic idea in 
their varied systems of worship. 

The disinterred ruins of the once mighty city of Nine- 
veh, is one complete inscription of the Sun-God's history 
and worship. 

The most ingenious and varied symbolisms ot Astral and 
Solar worship, speak in unmistakable tones of evidence 
from the magnificent remains of Babylon, from the ruins 
of Tadmor in the Desert, and in innumerable groups of 
once famous, though now unknown, vestiges of human habi- 
tation, scattered throughout Central Asia. Even the Trog- 
lodyte remains bear witness to the prevalence of Solar 
worship, in rude carvings, and grotesque imitations of the 
heavenly bodies. 



62 

From the ruins profusely scattered throughout Asia 
Minor, from the land of the Phascanna, Iberians, Alban- 
ians, Phrygians and lonians, the author of this work has 
collected an immense number of photographic representa- 
tions of planetary and Solar worship. 

The Scythian nations generally worship fire, and pre- 
serve traditions of a crucified Sun-God. They celebrate 
the Sun's birthday on the 25th of December, and amongst 
some tribes of the Tartars the author has attended all 
the festal ceremonies described as appertaining to the as- 
tronomical religion. 

The religions of China and Japan were originally found- 
ed on the mythical history of the Sun-God. Many addi- 
tions and interpolations upon the basic legend, have 
obtained in Chinese and Japanese worship, but the founda- 
tion is unique, and the feasts, ceremonial rites, and seasons 
of observance, all prove the parity of worship amongst 
these people, with the Sabean system. 

In the Islands of Ceylon, Java, the Phillipine and Mo- 
luccas, various forms of Solar and Astral worship have ex- 
isted for ages. 

The Druidical system of worship, though largely inter- 
spersed with other ideas, to be hereafter described, was 
firmly planted on the Sabean system, and recognized a 
Sun-God Mediator with a complete Zodiacal history in the 
incarnated deity they called Hesus. 

The entire of the splendid imagery of Grecian and Ro- 
man mythology was but a paraphrase of Egyptian Solar 
worship, enlarged, embellished, and beautified by the poetic 
mentality of Greece and Rome. 

The idea of the Great Spiritual Sun of the ancients, the 
unknown and unknowable, finds its perfect corresponden ce 
in the Greek Zeus — the God who dwells alone, and from 
whom proceed, as subordinate emanations, all the imper- 
sonated powers of nature, planetary and astral spirits, who 



63 



figure 
Hermes 



in the famous Pantheon. Apollo, Merc my, or 
Bacchus, Prometheus, and Esculapius were Sun_ 
Gods, Mediators, Saviours ; Ceres, Proserpina and Pluto 
played their special parts in the Astral Drama, but all de- 
rive their names and histories from the same source. 
Hindoos, Egyptians, Arabians, Parsees, Greeks, and Ro- 
mans, all drank at the same celestial fountain, and only 
varied their rites, ceremonials, names, and figures to suit 
the ideality of the land whose age or climactric influence 
determined their intelligence. 

The Jews, whose records of war, bloodshed, violence, 
laws, customs, dresses, upholstery, and cuisine^ the Chris- 
tians hold sacred as the inspired word of God, worshipped 
a Deity who was only one of the Eloihim or astral tutelary 
spirits of the Egyptians. Bel, Belus, Baal, Baalpeor 
Moloch, Dagon, Jehovah, Jah, I Am, etc., etc , etc., these 
and the names of the various other Gods, or tutelary Dei- 
ties worshipped by the various nations of Arabia and Asia 
Minor, including the Jews, are only so many synonyms of 
the one Mediatorial Sun-God, who, under every conceiv- 
able variety of form and title, reappears in the stupendous 
system of Astral and Solar worship, itself an external 
expression of the sublime and harmonious order of the 
universe. 




Annubis — lEgyptian Amulet. 



64 



SECTION V 



^ 



Crux Ansata, 

JSex- Worship — its antiquity and jneaning. The connec- 
tion of Sex, Solar and Serpent Worsliij? — the Spiritual 
and Material Ideas of Antique Faiths contrasted — the 
degradation and, deatli of Materialistic Worship, and 
the triumph of Spiritual. 

Ever interpenetrating the signs and symbols of the as- 
tronomical religion, ranging beside its emblems, yet never 
entirely losing its own individuality, or merging its identi- 
ty in that of its companion, appears a system of worship, 
looming up from the antique ages, whose origin and mean- 
ing has, until recently, been involved in mystery. The 
repulsive nature of the subject has, in all probability, 
caused even the philosophers who had mastered its mean- 
ing and understood its symbols, to shrink from exposing 
their knowledge to the vulgar mind. This will be better 
understood when we intimate that the esoteric system, 
to which we allude, is sex worship, or religious belief 
founded on the assumed sacredness of the order of genera- 
tion. 

Amongst the emblems most commonly seen in this con- 
nection are the Phallus or Lingham, the Triangle, all the 
different methods of exhibiting the Cross, the Serpent with 
his tail in his mouth, and a vast number of such geometri- 



65 

cal signs as include the triangle, cross and circle. Many 
learned archa9ologists are of opinion that sex worship, if 
it did not actually antedate, is still of as ancient an origin 
as that of the stars. 

The author of this work deems that the primal faith of 
humanity was unmixed solar and astral worship, but the 
authoritative reasons for this belief are of little consequence 
to the general reader. It is enough to say that the em- 
blems of solar and sex worship are so constantly combined 
in the same monumental remains, that we must infer both 
were understood, and in a measure reduced to systematic 
expresssion, at the earliest period when man began to 
leave records of his thoughts. 

There are no shadows without a substance," no fables 
without a genuine idea to allegorize upon. 

The fable of the Garden of Eden, the temptation and 
fall of man, is very generally assumed by materialistic 
writers to have a purely astronomical origin, and to have 
been founded on the following astral order. The August 
constellation of the Virgin, represents a woman holding a 
flower, sprig or fruit in her hand, beckoning to Bootes or 
Joseph, the constellation a little to the north of the Virgin, 
but in close proximity to her. This configuration of the 
heavenly signs, it is alleged, may be as often interpreted 
into the fabled relations of Adam and Eve, as the Virgin 
Mary and Joseph. The radiance, bloom and beauty of 
the season in which these constellations appear, signifies 
the earthly Eden. The astral woman tempts the astral 
man, she herself is tempted by the Serpent, who presently 
appears in the skies as the Great Dragon. The woman 
gives of the fruit she holds to man, he eats and falls. The 
Cherubim and Seraphim of the skies (the typical signs of 
constellated stars), drive them forth from the Eden of 
Summer into the gloom and famine of Winter. To restore 



66 

the fallen man to a future paradise, a Saviour must be 
found, and this is efi'ected in the birth of the Sun-God, at 
midwinter, and his renovating' influence durino; the sue- 
ceeding Spring and Summer. 

To accept of this fable without allowing for a spiritual 
significance concealed beneath it, is equivalent to the as- 
sumption that the ancients actually worshipped the sun, 
moon and stars as personal Gods ; but the ancients never 
enunciated sacred ideas except in allegorical forms of 
speech, and never mapped out the scheme of an allegory 
without a profoundly spiritual meaning veiled by it. 

" As it is above, so is it below " — " On the earth as in 
the skies," were the sentences by which the mystics of old 
were accustomed to affirm the universal correspondence 
between the harmonies of the natural and spiritual in every 
department of being. 

To understand how the ancients interpreted these astral 
hieroglyphics into such a system as would explain the fall 
of man, and yet preserve the correspondence between his 
estate on earth and the movements of the heavenly bodies, 
it is necessary to revert to the theory enunciated in Sec- 
tion I, where it was shown that the Soul originally dwelt 
in a purely spiritual state of existence ; but being tempted 
by the craving desire for earthly knowledge, it became 
attracted to this planet — incarnated in the form of man — 
and hence " the fall " of spirit into matter. With all that 
reverence which finite being must feel when it presumes to 
speculate on infinity, we may imagine that the form of the 
highest spiritual existences may admit of no parts or 
angles, but may be, indeed, like the perfection of the spirit- 
ual Sun, a Globe ; but all organic forms are sections of the 
perfect sphere, and man is obviously a complex assem- 
blage of lines and circles, uniting in himself all the details 
of mathematical proportion, subordinate to the perfection 
of figure assumed to exist in the Spiritual Sun. 



67 

In taking on a material existence, therefore, and chang- 
ing from a purely spiritual entity to become an organized 
material being, the first principle of earthly life to be 
evolved must needs be the means to produce and repro- 
duce it. 

This, in an earthly state of being, is just as sacred and 
paramount a theme as the formation of worlds, and the 
birth of suns and systems in the agi>;regate of the Universe. 

As the function of creation is the highest and most won- 
derful with which the mind can invest Deity, so the imita- 
tive law must become the noblest and most sacred function 
of God's creatures. In thebegimr'ngof earthly existence, 
we believe it was thus esteemed, and in those remote ages 
when sex worship was incorporated into a religious system, 
the highest and noblest elements of human thought clus- 
tered around the subject of generation, elevating it to the 
topmost pinnacle of human worship. 

As the clear intuitions of the early man carried him 
back to his state of primeval, spiritual innocence, and rec- 
ognized in his birth into matter a descent in the scale of 
being synonymous with the idea of a fall, so he imagined 
he perceived the order of this scheme mapped out in the 
constellated Zodiac of the skies. As he recognized the 
generative functions to be the immediate means of the Soul's 
birth into matter, so he elevated them into divine signifi- 
cance, and set up their emblems as fit subjects for religious 
reverence. In process of time the instinctive appetites 
of man's sensual nature stimulated sex worship into excess, 
and degraded a holy idea into gross licentiousness. But 
this was the abuse, not the true origin of sex worship. 
Physical generation was once esteemed as the gate by 
which the Soul entered upon the stupendous pathway of 
progress, and became fitted for its angelic destiny in the 
celestial heavens ; but, like all sacred ideas when trans- 



68 

lated into matter, the law of physical generation came 
to be regarded as mere physical enjoyment ; it sank into 
sensuality, and hence the necessity which the wise and 
philosophic priesthood of old perceived, of veiling all teach- 
ings on this subject in mysteries, and expressing all ideas 
in its connection in obscure symbolism. 

There are marked evidences in the vestiges of antiquity 
as to how the sexual idea encroached upon the forms of 
Solar worship. 

The primitive conceptions of creation were exalted, 
sublime ; but when the idea of sex worship became uni- 
versal, even the Astral religion became imbued with its 
materialistic influence. The impersonations of the stars and 
the powers of nature were divided into male and female. 

The story of creation was woven into romantic legends 
of amorous Gods and Goddesses ; the emblems of genera- 
tion were profusely interspersed with astronomical signs, 
and any description of animal, however loathsome, so long 
as it was remarkable for procreative power, became dei- 
fied as a type of the creative energy. 

To those who esteem the spiritual idea as antagonistic 
to the material, and believe with the most exalted of the 
Essenes, that in Heaven, angelic essences are pure and free 
from all the impulses and attributes of matter, it must in- 
deed have seemed a fall for the Soul to descend to earth 
and become incarnate only, through the process of physi- 
cal generation. And yet such is obviously the law of phy- 
sical being. In the order of the Universe, spirit is the pri- 
mal essence in which there is ne.ither sex, age, sin, nor ca- 
pacity for pain. 

With the descent of Soul into physical life, man be- 
comes dual, male and female, with sex as the dividing line 
between them. Then too ensues that mysterious trans- 
formation of the soul's faculties which converts spiritual 



69 

love into material passion, intuitional knowledge into hu- 
man reason, boundless perception into dim memory and 
vague prescience, eternal things into temporal, and a crea- 
ture without parts or passions, into one all organs, and 
swayed by every emotion that ranges from the depths of 
vice to the heights of virtue. 

The brief race on earth run, spiritual spheres of pro- 
gress opening up fresh avenues of purification to the pil- 
grim Soul, still preserving all the faculties acquired by its 
birth and association with matter, the celestial Angel 
stands related to the germ spirit, as the fully unfolded 
blossom to the embryonic seed. In this order of progress 
it is clearly shown that the means whereby the spirit- 
dweller of the original Eden, becomes the perfected Angel 
of a celestial heaven, are : mortal birth, a pilgrimage through 
spheres of trial, discipline and purification, and an organ- 
ism made up of separate parts with appropriate functions, 
the due and legitimate exercise of which constitute the 
methods of progress. In such a scheme, every trial and 
suffering has its meaning, and every passion (even the 
tendencies to vice and crime), their use, in shaping theru- 
dimental Angel, through remorse and penalty, into ultimate 
strength and divine proportion. 

A familiar but apposite illustration of the relative 
difference between the germ spirit that descends from 
realms of primeval innocence to be born into matter, and 
that same spirit unfolded through spheres of discipline into 
the perfected Angel, is found, if we liken the two states 
to those of the acorn and the full grown oak. 

The one is still the oak in germ, but the noble propor- 
tions of the tree, its overshadowing branches, the vast 
girth of its mighty trunk, the splendor of its Briareus 
arms wide-stretched to the winds, with its ten thousand 
leafy hands tossed abroad on the ambient air ; its rich har- 



70 

/ 
vest of countless germs, and the unborn forests that are to 
be furnished from their reproductive powers, all grow out 
of the association of the primal acorn with the formative 
matrix of eaj^th. 

Even so is it with the Soul. To become an Angel it must 
first be a Man, then a Spirit, struggling on through spheres 
of graduated unfoldment, and when all is done, the Soul 
originally expelled from its Eden of innocence and ignor- 
ance will regain it with the strength, wisdom and love 
which alone can constitute it an Angel of God. 

It was with this perception of the Soul's destiny, that 
the ancients esteemed the generative functions as divine, 
and the deification of their emblems as an act of religious 
duty. Whilst we believe this view of the origin of sex 
worship, the true one, those who regard it simply from the 
standpoint of results, and contemplate the abominations 
practiced in its celebration, might well believe it to be the 
offspring of man's merely animal and instinctive nature ; 
such it undoubtedly became when it sank into that corrup- 
tion and abuse which too often attends the decadence of 
ideas, however exalted in their source. There was much, 
too, in the Jewish theogony to favor the tendency to 
excess in sex worship. 

Throughout the writings of the Pentateuch, the utmost 
importance is attached to the production of offspring. 
Every means was adopted by the priestly lawgivers to 
promote the propagation of the species. 

Childless women were branded with the bitterest 
reproach. Eunuchs or persons afflicted with personal 
blemishes were forbidden to hold sacred offices. Every 
inducement which a stringent law could hold out, to com- 
pel the people to " multiply and replenish the earth,'' was 
an essential of the Jewish religion. On the other hand, 
the prophetic writings of the Jews abound with fulmina- 



71 

tions of the Divine wrath against those who carried their 
ideas of sex worship to excess and sensualism. The 
unsparing denunciations of the Hebrew prophets against 
the practice of sacrificing to '' strange Gods," are accom- 
panied by the plainest descriptions of what those sacrifi- 
cial rites were, and give color to the belief that the reli- 
gious veneration which had once sanctified the idea of the 
generative functions as a divine mystery, had sunk into an 
all-prevailing and soul corrupting sensualism. 

In comparison with Egypt, Chaldea, Assyria, and Hin- 
dostan, Judea was but a modern nation. 

The nomadic tribes of the Jews had made no mark on 
the world's history when Egypt was hoary with age, and 
India had recorded cycles of time, lost in the night of anti- 
quity. The exoteric remains of solar and sex worship, 
together with all their signs and symbols, presented to the 
Jews only a dying vestige of faiths of whose resplend- 
ant maturity no historic epoch, however remote, can show 
an authentic record. 

We only know it must have heen so. Maps of the heavens, 
and perfected charts of astral motions, involving intricate 
calculations, which must have required thousands of years 
to arrive at, were all handed down from pre-historic, to the 
commencement of historic times, and that with a complete- 
ness which fully sustains the enormous claims of the Hin- 
doos for the existence of their dynasty during cycles of 
time which baffle the human mind to conceive of 

How many times have the silent but most eloquent 
catacombs of the old earth, in the form of upturned plains, 
the beds of rivers, the depths of artesian wells, and the 
recesses of newly-discovered caverns, brought to light con- 
clusive testimony that man lived, labored, wrought in clay, 
stone, pottery and metals, tens of thousands of years ago, 
on the face of the earth ! 



72 

The author has himself spent years in India, studying 
out that wonderful system of numerals which point to the 
antiquity of man, and the fact that he commenced astro- 
nomical calculations more than twenty thousand years 
ago. Some of these silent voices indicate axial changes in 
this planet which could not have transpired in less than a 
hundred thousand years. Others prove that the Hindoos 
clearly understood the precession of the equinoxes, ages 
before the Christian era. 

About the commencement of that period, the colossal 
forms of the mystic Sphinx might have been found in long 
and majestic rows in the various temples of old India, and 
yet the mystery of the Sphinx could only have been solved 
by a people who had correctly understood the precession 
of the equinoxes. To effect a change in the position of 
the sun in the Zodiacal path from one sign to .another, 
must occupy at least 2140 years ; and yet such changes 
had occurred, been fully calculated, and recorded in the 
astronomical riddle of the Sphinx, a composite figure, de- 
signed to celebrate the sun's passage from the sign of the 
Virgin to that of the Lion, when the Jews were unknown 
as a people. 

What amount of intellectual power had the mind of man 
arrived at, ere these records of astronomical lore, mechani- 
cal skill and artistic power were achieved 1 

The remains of tropical plants now found amidst the 
awful desolation of the Arctic and Antarctic regions — the 
constant stream of revelation silently but surely upheav- 
ing its mystic writings from the superincumbent debris 
under which the earth of a million years ago lies buried — 
the stony voices that thunder through the colossal remains 
of ruined cities, and the swift but immutable footprints of 
the fiery squadrons whose march through the skies, the 
mind of man has followed up through ages of unrecorded 



73 

time, all proclaim that the movements of the Universe 
transpire in spiral and ever-revolving cycles. 

Like the path of the smi on the Ecliptic, now ascending 
on the royal arch of the northern hemisphere, now de- 
scending into the southern bow, but ever moving in gyra- 
ting circles upward, typifying the march of planets, 
nations, ages of time and human souls, so that those who 
study the part may comprehend the whole, all these stu- 
pendous witnesses figure out the law by which cycles of 
civilization are born, grow, ascend to their culminating 
point of splendor, then turn the hill of time, descend lower 
and lower into engulfing depths, lower and lower into cor- 
ruption, degradation, death ! And yet they rise again, and, 
Phoenix-like, spring from the funeral ashes of their pyre, 
to be reborn in nobler, higher forms of younger civiliza- 
tions. 

So has it been with man and his religious beliefs. Solar 
and sex worship, born of man's highest conceptions of the 
Divine plan, rose into an almost perfect science, the science 
by which the antique man perceived the correspondence 
between the earth and the heavens, the Creator and his 
creatures. This famous era of ancient civilization culmi- 
nated, crossed the equinox of prophetic death, descended 
into the night of corruption and sensualism, and perished 
with the closing up of Oriental dyngbsties. 

The real spiritual truths of antiquity have never died ; 
but yet their exhibition has only at times illuminated the 
ages with corruscations of light, so little understood that 
their holy radiance has been mistaken for the baleful glare 
of " Supernaturalism." They have never died ; but, as 
yet, they only give promise, not a full assurance of the 
resurrection that is at hand. 

Mankind, absorbed in its devotion to the pursuits of 
material science, has ignored its spiritual interests, or care- 



74 

lessly committed them to the charge of an ignorant and 
selfish Priesthood ; but when the day of true spiritual 
awakening comes, when the Soul of the Universe shall be 
known and felt in the Souls of His Creatures, the light of 
this Spiritual revelation will shine upon husks and figments 
of the dead past, of which reason, no less than intuition, 
will be ashamed. It will show the lifeless bodies of ancient 
faiths, from which the soul has long fled, leaving nothing 
but dust and ashes, forms and ceremonies, surplices and 
shaven crowns behind. 

It will show the painted Clown and many-colored Harle- 
quins of an ecclesiastical circus, still performing then" 
dreary tricks in an amphitheatre from which the stately 
personages of the grand Drama have vanished, where the 
curtain has fallen, the lights are quenched, on which the 
eternal midnight of a dead age has set in, with nothing to 
relieve the silence but the fluttering wings of the spectral 
ideas which already begin to flit forth into the morning of a 
new day, seeking the resurrecting life and light of a new 
Spiritual religion. 




LCarpocrates adoring the Yoiii, 



75 



SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION V. 



Sistruin — Virgin's Symbol. 




u 

Celestial Mother. 

Showing Jiow Solar and Sex Worship became interhlended; 
also, the nature and origin of Serpent Worship — the 
Signs, Symbols and Mmhlems of the three Systems — 
Scriptural Names and their Meanings — the ultimate 
degradation of Materialistic, or Exoteric Religion, 
and the triumph of Spiritual Worship. 

The explorers of ancient India, Egypt, Greece, and 
Rome, have wisely distrusted the propriety of giving very 
graphic representations, or close descriptions of their 
monumental remains. 

Most of the popular writers on these lands have con- 
tented themselves with hinting that Phallic worship pre- 
vailed amongst the ancients, and that its emblems are 
abundantl}^ interspersed with other records ; but the truth 
is, that all the records are overlaid with emblems of Phallic 
worship, and that there is scarcely a monument or inscrip- 
tion of antiquity which does not, in some lorm or other, 
perpetuate the idea of Solar or Sex worship, or both. 



76 

Nearly all the Scri'ptiiral names have a direct bearing 
upon sexual ideas. Every title, including the syllables 
El, Om, On, Di and Mi, signify the same ideas. The titles 
ascribed to the Sun and the Generative Gods are mutually 
convertible, and both are continually bestowed upon the 
Gods of the ancients. 

Adonis, Elijah, Elisha, El, Bael, Belus, Jehovah, Jah, 
Abraham, Samson, Jachin, Boaz, Adam, Eve, Mary, Esau, 
Edom, Zeus, Jupiter, Thor, Odin, Sol, Helios, Asher, 
Dyonisius, etc., etc., etc., are all names significant of sexual 
ideas. 

Most of the names bestowed on Hindoo, Egyptian, Greek, 
Roman and Hebrew Gods, bear the same interpretation, or 
else are applicable, in a double sense, to Solar and Sex 
worship. The names of the twelve tribes of Israel have 
direct reference to the generative functions ; and thus 
are Bible names and Bible terms, put into the mouths of 
innocent, lisping children as " the word of God," a word 
which, if interpreted in all the fullness of its meaning, 
would crimson the cheek of every virtuous matron with 
shame. 

Up to the days when European civilization prevailed, 
and the influence of a temperate, equatorial climate, mod- 
erated the excessive energy of that emotional nature which 
man inherits from his association with matter, stimulated 
to immense activity in the fervid heat of tropical climes, 
his religious aspirations were all tinctured with the idio- 
syncrasies of his physical nature. He deemed of his God 
as of himself. 

The sublime beauty of the spangled heavens, the obvi- 
ous correspondence of heat, light, and planetary influence 
with his material well being, and the final mystery and 
power of the generative functions, were the most direct 
and natural appeals that he could find in the universe to 



77 

his sense of reverence, and his ideas of power. Is it any 
marvel that he worshipped the heavenly host, and deemed 
the laws of generation the most direct representations of 
Deific action in creation ? 

The chief symbols of these interblended systems are 
found in the various forms of crosses extant ; in the Phallus 
or Lingham, and the Yoni, the male and female emblems 
of generation ; in the triangle or Tau, the origin of the 
cross, the serpent who in so many ways was esteemed as 
a deiiic emblem, and every object, natural or artificial, 
which bore the least resemblance to the figures enumerated 
above. 

As regards the cross, it has frequently been attempted to 
show that it owes its sacred character to the instrument of 
punishment upon which the Christian's God was supposed 
to have sufiered death. 

Ages before the Jews were known as a nation, the cross 
was regarded all through the East as a sacred symbol. 

To remove the obscenity of the idea attached to its 
original meaning, from the image, which modern civiliza- 
tion so devoutly cherishes, it has been urged that it was 
reverenced by the Egyptians, because it was used as a 
Nileometer or measure of the river Nile. Granting this, 
and admitting that the Nile was held sacred by the 
Egyptians as the source of plenty and irrigation, hence, 
that the Nileometer, with its upright post and cross-piece to 
mark the height to which the waters attained, was also held 
sacred as an emblem of redemption from famine, or a sign 
of possible destruction, still this does not account for the 
prevalence of the cross, nor the reverence attached to it in 
lands where no Nileometer was required, and in distant 
ages ere Nileometers were invented. 

Sculptured over every temple of the East, the cross in 
many forms was used to signily the generative power. 



78 

It was originally designed to represent a Trinity, and 
thus gave rise to the sacredness attached to the number 
three, with all its multiples, and in all the varieties of form 
in which the cross is found from the plain letter T, the Tau 
of the Scandinavians or the hammer ofThor, to the eight- 
sided cross of the Templars, and in all its variousness it 
signified and does signify, nothing more or less than the 
fertility, fecundity and creative structure of the mascu- 
line principle of generation. The fact that the sun's two 
chief incidents of Zodiacal travel were the crossings of the 
Ecliptic plane at Spring and Autumn, deepened the rever- 
ence which antique nations cherished for this all-prevail- 
ing symbol, but instead of removing it from the earth to 
the skies, it simply showed in this dual significance, the 
unity of design expressed throughout the cosmic motions 
of the universe. 

The female emblem was signified by an unit, a circle, a 
boat-shaped shell, a lozenge, or any object, animate or- 
inanimate, that resembled these figures, or implied recep- 
tivity, fruitfulness, or maternity. The union of the female 
unit with the male triad, was designated by the sa cred and 
mystic number 4, or symbolized by a serpent with his tail 
in his mouth, two fishes bent to form a circle, the rite of 
circumcision, and many other symbolical rites and figures. 

The origin of Serpent worship arose first from the uni- 
versal prevalence of these creatures throughout the Orient ; 
the extreme subtlety of their natures implying wisdom, 
their custom of casting their skins denoting renewed youth 
and immortality, their tremendous and deadly powers 
of destruction, analogous to the '' wrath of God," their sup- 
posed healing virtue indicative of the life-giving power of 
the sun, the glory of their shining scales imitating light ; 
but, above all, the Serpent was deified as the antagonistic 
power of the skies, defined in the great constellation of the 



79 

Dragon, which did annual war with the heavenly legions 
of the sun. 

Endless were the fables invented to typify the wisdom 
and life-giving properties of serpents ; endless the myths 
in which they figured as the representatives of good and 
evil Genii. 

Serpent worship is, in all probability, as old as Sex and 
Solar worship, and a thorough understanding of the three 
systems forms a clue to all the signs, symbols, allegories 
and mysteries of all the ancient faiths that prevailed be- 
fore the Christian era. 

The ideas indicated by these symbols, and the legends 
attached to them, underlie all those stupendous rites, 
solemn mysteries, and gigantic monuments of art, that 
have overlaid the once splendid Orient with ruins that 
will remain the mystery and admiration of the race till 
time shall be no more. The myths and symbols of these 
interblended systems prevailed indeed, long after the 
Christian era, and were preserved by the Gnostics, Mani- 
cheans, Neo Platonists, and many of the early sects 
amongst Christians and Philosophic Greeks ; they are pre- 
served and prevail amongst the most civilised of sects to- 
day, but alas ! without any real appreciation of the ideas 
that once vitalized the images. 

Much of the mysticism of the '^Divine Plato," and the 
numerical wisdom of Pythagoras, owed their ideality to 
the esoteric meaning veiled in Oriental symbolism. 

The famous mysteries of Eleusis, the Bacchic and 
Dyonisian rites, the feasts in honor of Ceres, the orgies of 
Cybele, and other mythical personages of the Greek Pan- 
theon ; ancient masonry, both speculative and operative, 
and its degraded and imbecile descendant, modern masonry, 
founded their origin upon the basic principles of tliese 
ancient systems of worship, and the mass of legendary 
lore to which they gave rise. 



80 

Curious as would be the tracery of these primitive roots 
through all the tendrils, branches, and reproductive germs 
that have overlaid the world with theological systems, the 
work must be reserved for another place and time, and 
this part of our subject must close with a few words in 
evidence of the lamentable tendency to degeneracy which 
all great ideas suffer when they outlive their day and use- 
fulness ; whilst the ark of the tabernacle survives though 
the sacred flame that of old dwelt between the Cherubim 
and Seraphim, is quenched in eternal night. 

Throughout the churches of Christendom, the name of 
the Most High God, the Alpha and Omega of Being, the 
Great Spirit who dwells alone and unknown in central 
orbs of primal light, is scarcely remembered, and ever, 
subordinated to the worship of the Cross, with all its 
varieties of expression and form. 

The myth of the Sun-God reappears in every phase of 
the Christian's creed. 

The surplices, robes and fantastic adornments of high 
ecclesiasticism, are simply imitations of the women's gar- 
ments which the priests of antiquity wore to indicate that 
God was both male and female. 

The bells and holy candles, the Lambs, Bulls, Eagles, 
Men, Lions and twelve apostolic personages, the Serpents, 
etc., etc., which cast their prismatic glory from costly 
painted windows on the chequered marbles of the floor 
beneath, are all but so many astronomical signs of antique 
fire worship, or emblems of sexual religion. The very 
shape of the steeples that crown the " houses of God " are 
mementos of the reverence accorded to the sacred flame, 
or veiled efiigies of the " divine Lingham." 

It would be equally painful and humiliating to analyze 
the mythical character of every sign and symbol of modern 
ecclesiasticism, were we not deeply, reverentially conscious 



81 

that the spirit that no longer vivifies the dead husks of ex- 
tinct faiths, still pervades the earth, still manifests its un- 
dying love for poor, idolatrous humanity, still illumines 
the heart, and sustains the drooping tendrils of that re- 
ligion which erects its altar in the soul, and finds its most 
imperishable shrine in the depths of man's spiritual con- 
sciousness. 

Witnesses too — witnesses on the sensuous plane of life 
— are not wanting to the truth of this undying spiritual 
influx, permeating every age, and adapting its revelations 
to all forms of faith that recognize spiritual existence. 

Like the waving lines of the shining ecliptic, ever bound- 
ing yet ever sustaining the sun-like progress of human 
destiny, comes down the ages the tracery of an all-pervad- 
ing realm of spiritual existence, at once the cause and effect 
of earthly being. 

Soul and spiritual essence is the God and the proce- 
dure, the Creator and the creature ; all things else are 
phantasmagoric shapes, born of the hour, as formative 
moulds in which soul essences grow, perishing with the 
hour when their office is ended. 

Were it not for the assurance that there is a realm of 
spirit adequate to produce, sustain and guide the tangled 
woof of creation, the pictures we have drawn, however 
faithful to the exoteric history of the race, would be but 
a temporary assemblage of dust and ashes heaped together 
into grotesque and incomprehensible images. With this 
compass to steer our way through the restless billows of 
life's storm-tossed ocean, we may rise and sink, drift far 
and wide of our mark, stagnate for a while on the sluggish 
sea of materialism, or seem to founder amidst the foam- 
crested upheavals of convulsed opinions, but we are in 
the hands of that Love that will never forsake us, that 
Wisdom that is all-sufficient to direct as, that Power that 
is^ almighty to save us. 



82 

" God lives and reigns !" said stout-hearted Martin 
Luther, when, standing alone, he bore testimony to his 
faith before princes, potentates and the opposing force of 
earth's assembled great ones. ' 

His strength is ours, and in that strength we can afford 
to stand by and watch the wreck of empires and dynasties, 
ecclesiastical faiths and man-made dogmas. 

We are immortal parts of the immortal Soul of the Uni- 
verse, and we never can be lost, or perish out of his hand. 




Ftntagone, 



83 



SECTION VI. 

Of the Subordinate Gods in the Universe — Angels, Spirits, 
Tutelary Deities^ Souls and Elementary Spirits — Opin- 
io'tis of the Ancients — the Jewish Cabbala — Classical Au- 
thorities. 

When the Spiritual in human history first dominated 
the mind, is as impossible to ascertain as who was the first 
man. 

A celebrated materialistic writer of the eighteenth cen- 
tury says : " The idea of subordinate Gods becomes a ne- 
cessary sequence to the acknowledgment of deific existence 
at all, and it would be as useless to search for the country or 
time when Gods, Spirits, and Angels were first believed in, 
as to attempt ascertaining the locality and period where 
and when religious worship began." This is essentially 
true^ though an adversary writes it. 

The origin of man's belief in Deity must be supplement- 
ed by his acceptance of intermediate spiritual existences, 
for the Soul which is the witness of the one, proclaims the 
other, and the chief difierence between the opinions on 
these points is, that whilst the deepest and most incommu- 
nicable emotions of the Soul rest on its Author and Fin- 
isher, Deity, the senses may bear witness to the presence 
and operation of subordinate Spiritual existences in the 
phenomena that attend their ministrations. 

It is enough to affirm that the vestiges of humanity 
in every country and age, bear testimony to man's belief 
in the ministry, and interposition in human affairs of or- 
ders of beings both superior and inferior to mortals, oper- 
ating for good and evil, but always through methods 



84 

beyond the power of mortal achievement, appealing to the 
senses through modes of action not possible to man with- 
out their aid, and after a fashion which proves them to be 
limited by none of the known laws of nature. 

From the days when the most ancient Sanscrit writings 
laid down modes of invoking spirits, described their quali- 
ties and influences, and prescribed the conditions under which 
mortals should hold communion with them, up to the nine- 
teenth century, when the " Spiritualists who permeate 
every land of civilization, print their little tracts descrip- 
tive of the best means of forming ' circles ' for the purpose 
of evoking spirit presence and communion, there never was 
an age or time when man in some form or other did not 
believe in Spiritual existences subordinate to the Deity ; 
in the means of communing with them, and in their 
influence on human action for good or evil." 

From the collected opinions of the Hindoos, Chaldeans, 
Persians, Jews, Hebrew and Oriental Cabbalists, Talmud- 
ists, Greeks and Romans, as well as from the author's own 
personal experience with spirits of different orders and 
grades, we present the following general summary of ideas, 
concerning the various degrees of Spiritual existences in 
the Universe. 

Whilst nearly every nation of antiquity deemed of God 
as the Demiurgus ; neither male nor female, yet both ; as 
of a Central Source of life, light, heat and creative energy, 
one alone, yet incomprehensible, uncreated, and indestruc- 
tible, all taught of subordinate procedures from Him. The 
first of these was a Divine Being corresponding to the 
Bramah of the Hindoo Trinity, the Osiris of Egypt, the 
Ormuzd of Persia, the Logos of Philo, the Adam Kadman 
of the Cabbalists, 

The idea embodied in this theogony was, that in the 
Deity resided the masculine principle of Power, and the 



85 

feminine of Wisdom, called bj the Cabbalists En Soph and 
Sophia. From the incomprehensible anion of these two 
proceeded a third, the Logos, or Word, through which the 
will of God became manifest in expression — that is, in the 
evolution of forms — worlds, suns, systems, reproductive 
■^erms, and realms of progressive being. In this stupend- 
ous system, the superior emanations were Gods, directing 
the birth, formation and destinies of worlds ; then came 
Archangels, charged with missions of Almighty power and 
wisdom. To them succeeded legions of Angels, some en- 
trusted with the direction of Planets, Earths, Nations, 
Cities, and Societies, hence called '' Tutelary Angels," and 
worshipped as Gods. Others, exercising rule in specific 
groups, and classified by Hebrew Cabbalists as " Thrones, 
Dominions, Powers." 

The division of Angels and Spirits into grand Hierar- 
chies, Legions, and specific offices of divine ministration, 
would occupy a volume, and give a vast and exalted per- 
ception of the antique view of Spiritual existence. De- 
scending from the grander scale of angelic ministration 
recited above, we notice that the Sages and Seers of anti- 
quity identified certain spirits as the inspiring agencies of 
art, science, different branches of industry, and all the oc- 
cupations of social, artistic, and even commercial life. The 
Hebrew Scriptures continually declare that God put it into 
the heart of such and such individuals, to work in brass or 
wood, fine linen, or rich coloring. In the direct and in- 
tuitional communion with Spiritual existences enjoyed by 
the Hebrews, it was assumed that all good or exceptionally 
great powers resulted from inspiration, and, as explained 
in the New Testament, those were called Gods, to whom the 
word of God came ; so when the terms God, or Lord, were 
made use of to' signify the source of the idea. Spiritual in- 
fluence was the kernel implied in the expression. 



86 

Below all the inspiring agencies for good were assumed 
to exist legions of evil spirits, almost as nmnerous, and 
scarcely less powerful to tempt and destroy, than good 
Angels were to bless. 

Between these two realms of opposing powers were 
ranged human Souls, not only in their incarnate forms of 
mortal being, but also as disembodied spirits, vast realms 
of spiritual existence being assigned them, interpenetrat- 
ing and surrounding the earth, through which, in successive 
stages of growth and progress, the pilgrim Soul was per- 
mitted to win its way back to the celestial state from which 
it had fallen by mortal birth. 

Every human Soul was supposed to attract to itself from 
the moment of birth two Spirits, the one powerful to in- 
fluence for good, the other for evil. These Spirits were 
called by the ancients, good and evil Genii ; and the natural 
proclivities to vice or virtue in the individual to whom they 
ministered, were supposed to be stimulated or exalted, 
according as the Soul gave heed to the inspiration of the 
tempter, or the counsellor. 

Besides the realms of being above enumerated, it was 
claimed that other orders existed, neither wholly good or 
purely evil ; neither entirely spiritual, nor actually material 
in their natures ; creatures of the elements, corresponding 
in their state, power and function, to the different ele- 
ments in the universe, and filling up all the realms of space 
with uncounted legions of embryonic and rudimental forms. 

These beings were, by reason of their semi-spiritual 
nature, invisible to man, and, because of the gross tincture 
of matter in their composition, unable to discern any orders 
of being but themselves, except through rare and excep- 
tional rifts in their atmospheric surroundings. They cor- 
responded to the ether, air, atmosphere, water, earth, 
minerals, plants, and different elements of which the earth 



87 

and the universe generally is composed. Some of these 
beings were malicious and antagonistic to man, and others 
harmless and good. All exerted power, especially in the 
direction of the element to which they corresponded ; they 
were said to be endowed with graduated degrees of intelli- 
gence, and to have bodies subject to the laws of birth, 
growth, change, and death. 

From being invisible to man, except through rare or pre- 
pared conditions, they were termed spirits ; from being 
embryonic, rudimentary, and attached only to certain 
fragments of the universe, they were termed Elementaries. 
Every plant and every world, every dew-drop and every 
sun, sustained swarms of this parasitical life, so that there 
was not an atom of matter but what was redolent of it. 
Had the ancients been acquainted with the powers of the 
microscope, they would doubtless have classed the infu- 
soria and animalculae revealed by this wondrous instrument 
with the realms of elementary spirits. Be this as it may, 
it was assumed that, as their existence was only rudiment- 
ary, and the evidences of that divine trinity which in man 
constitutes an immortal being, namely, matter, force, and 
spirit, was lacking, so they had no soul, and were not 
immortal. It was also taught of the Elementaries, that 
though they propagated their species, were animated by 
will and some share of intelligence, lived their term of life, 
and died, still they possessed no concrete, self-conscious 
principle of being, sufficiently developed to enable the 
spiritual essence that escaped at death to become individu- 
alized, and retain a recollection of its past, or a personal 
consciousness of its own identity. Thence it was taught that 
the spiritual essence of the disintegrated organism, was 
gathered up in death and passed into some more advanced 
form of being ; that each successive birth purified its na- 
ture, and enlarged its capacity ; in fact, that it was life, 



instinct, and matter, in progressive stages of existence, and 
that this progress continued until the most rudimental 
sparks of spiritual being expanded into fully developed 
spiritual blossoms, attained to the glory and dignity of self- 
conscious spiritual entities, gravitated to spiritual spheres, 
and from thence became attracted to earth, entered into 
the Soul principle of man, and thus united him in essence 
with all the lower forms of being, and themselves com- 
menced a self-conscious and immortal stage of fresh ascend- 
ing pilgrimages. 

" The spheres of elementary existence, " says a famous 
Oriental Cabbalist, " are as numerous, and their orders as 
rife with variety and function, as are the earth's planets, 
suns, systems, and realms of ether. 

"^There cannot be a grain of matter but has its correspond- 
ing spiritual counterpart. Ranging from the infinitely large 
to the infinitely little, from a world to a monad, all things 
in the universe of matter are supplemented b}^ an universe 
of spirit, and it is as unreasonable to suppose that mighty 
suns and resplendent planets should be destitute of Provi- 
dential law, order, guidance, and maintenance, through 
deific tutelary Angels, as that a sand-grain, or a dew-drop 
should be left to the direction of its own unaided and non- 
intelligent movements. All, all, are but external expres- 
sions of the immortal soul, which, in fragments and atoms 
suited to the thing it vitalizes, animates, permeates and 
sustains all being, even as the Soul of man vitalizes his 
material structm^e. "-. 

We have given this teaching as a compendium of antique 
and chiefly of Oriental thought ; but we now preface all 
farther attempts at elucidating the subject matter of this 
work, by claiming every iota of this philosophy to be the 
truth, as it appears to the mind of the author. 

From long years of communion with spuits of every 



89 

grade, high and low, perfected and rudimental ; from the 
privilege of wandering in their spheres in the clairvoyant 
condition, from visits made spiritually to the realms of 
elementary being where the poor, imperfect dwellers beheld 
in the astral body of their visitant an imaginary God, 
from dreams, trances, visions, open and oral communion 
with angelic beings and ministering spirits, the author 
insists that the doctrines herein enunciated are transcripts 
of the order of the Universe, as clearly laid down as the half- 
prophetic, half-bedimmed vision of humanity can appre- 
hend it, and that, whether accepted or rejected, it contains 
holy truths, which belong to the best interests of humanity 
to comprehend ; revealments which our fathers understood, 
and we have lost sight of, from our undue devotion to 
material interests, and our blind fanaticism in ignoring all 
spiritual research save such as comes through an effete and 
materialistic ecclesiasticism. 

We are quite aware that if this volume should fall into the 
hands of one-idead, self-styled scientists, the avowal of 
faith just recorded will amply justify such readers in 
committing the work to the flames as the ravings of a 
lunatic. Should it be read by any of those presumptuous 
and narrow-minded Spiritualists who assume that there is 
no other realm of spiritual being than that occupied by 
their own particular familiars, we anticipate the wail of 
denunciation they will raise, insisting that no theory can 
be true, or worth studying, that has not been spelled out by 
their rapping spirits, declared in doggrel rhymes through 
their semi-tranced media, or lisped out in comical broken 
English, by the spirits of " little Indian maids, " or " big 
braves, " once renowned for eloquence and wisdom, but 
transformed through mediumistic witchery, into imbeciles, 
and buffoons. Should it be read by the too devoted 
followers of the soul-illumined Seer of Sweden, who can- 



90 

not admit of any truth which the mind of Swedenborg 
failed to grasp, they will say, these writings are dictated 
by lying spirits, and that, because he, the conservator and 
revelator of all truth to the minds of the bigoted, affirmed, 
that all angels, even the highest that moved around the throne 
of God, " had once heen men. " 

Should these pages fall into the hands of the intelligent 
modern Spiritualist whose incessant watch-word is " light, 
more light !" his comment will be, " this may be true or 
false, but because I don't know it to-day, I will endeavor 
to prove it to-morrow, and accept or reject it, only as I can 
prove it." 

Should the work fall into the hands of a learned 
^' Pagan," well-read "Heathen," or instructed Orientalist, 
he will say, " Surely this writer has heard the voices of 
the Oracles ; beheld the glories of the mysteries ; and sat 
at the feet of the Sages, who quaffed from the eternal 
fountain of revelation ! 

He is an Initiate — a Hierophant — a Brother ivho speaks 
the word of truth known only to the few; — the Master's 
Word is whispered in these pages, thrilling through the bones 
to the very marrow of humanity.'''' 

According to some, but not by any means the most in- 
telligent or best educated of the American Spiritualists, 
there is no God at all, only " a principle," and nothing 
higher in the scale of being than the spirits of their de- 
ceased friends and kindred ; but these materialistic philoso- 
phers form but a small part of that intelligent nation of 
thinkers, and their teachings have but little weight be- 
yond a ^QVf score of poor people, who gather together, and 
in grandiloquent phraseology congratulate each other on 
being the great I Ams of the Universe. 

The majority of persons convinced by wonderful signs 
and tokens [in America,Uhat the souls of men live and 



91 

communicate to their friends on earth, have seemed to 
the author, to be waiting for some philosophy or revela- 
tion that should carry them beyond this one isolated fact, 
and reduce spiritual existence and human life to corres- 
pondential and appreciable doctrines of science. 

Would that these humble writings might aid to practi- 
calize their noble aspirations ! 

The sacred books of Hermes, once supposed to have 
been the most ancient writings in the world, but now 
more generally deemed to have been copies of the Hindoo 
Vedas, transplanted from India into Egypt, give most 
elaborate accounts of the different orders of angelic beings 
in the Universe, and render descriptions of the spiritual 
counterparts of every plant, mineral, rain-drop or speck of 
dust in the earth and its atmosphere. 

Eusebius, the Christian Bishop of Csesarea, who wrote 
in the fourth century of the Christian era, claimed to have 
been familiar with these famous Hermetic writings. He 
says they often repeat the question : " Have you not been 
told that all spirits are sparks from the Divine Soul of the 
Universe ; Gods, Demons, Souls, yet in their variousness 
all emanations from Him." 1 

Jamblichus, quoting from the same source, writes : 
" From this One came all Gods that be ; all souls, all 
spirits, good and bad, and many that be neither very 
wicked nor yet good. 

" There be many kinds of spiritual essences besides souls, 
as spirits of the earth, the sea, running waters, and even 
some that do inhabit the holes of reptiles that live on the 

banks of rivers, or the depths of mines Their abiding 

places cannot so much as be named, without enumerating 

all the secret corners of the earth That these spirits 

are often under the dominion of man, is as true as that 
they may be transformed by the arch enemy of mankind 



92 

into instruments of ill, to work the deeds of darkness, in 
which he delights." 

Lao-Kiun, a cotemporary of the great Chinese Sage 
Confucius, founded a school, which, lor the spirituality of 
its doctrines, far transcended the teachings of Confucius. 
His text of religious faith was — " Tao (meaning God) pro- 
duced one ; one produced two, two produced three, and 
three produced all things." 

During the lifetime of this philosopher, a book contain- 
ing the names and offices of innumerable companies of 
spirits was found, as it was asserted, suspended on the 
royal gate of Pekin, placed there by no mortal hand, and 
supposed to be full of direct revelations from Heaven. 

This miraculous volume is said to have contained magi- 
cal formulse for the evocation and control of spirits ; di- 
rections how to cast out devils and heal diseases ; also the 
profoundest secrets of alchemy, namely the composition of 
the philosopher's stone and the elixir vitae. 

To satisfy the bigotry and superstitious fears of succeed- 
ing generations, this book, together with all other magical 
writings, was destroyed. Still, it was asserted, that pri- 
vate copies had been made and circulated of its contents. 
From a curious and very ancient roll of MSS., in the royal 
library of Pekin, the author has had the privilege of copy- 
ing a tine astrological chart, and a magical evocation of 
elementary spirits, assumed to have been first written in 
the aforesaid book. 

In Chaldea, the only great nation of antiquity in which 
Phallic and Yonic emblems are not found, proving by the 
universal prevalence of pure astronomical symbols, the 
extreme antiquity of the worship there practiced, a belief 
in various ascending and descending grades of spirits and 
angels, everywhere speaks out from the mighty and stu- 
pendous ruins. The same belief, only on a much more 



93 

elaborate scale, was cherished amongst the Medes and Per- 
sians, and taught in all its minutiae by Zoroaster. 

The universal prevalence of image worship throughout 
the East, is due to the idea that the spirits of Stars, Plan- 
ets, Angels, Seraphs, Cherubs and Elementary Spirits, 
could be attracted to their images, when consecrated under 
magical formulae, and not only fix the worshippers' minds 
upon the spirits represented in the images, but actually 
draw them into those material receptacles. The strange 
and grotesque forms of consecrated images may thus be 
accounted for. 

The winged Bull of Nineveh was the personification of 
the Cherubim. — The winged Serpent represented the 
Seraphim. 

The immense numbers of insects, birds and animals es- 
teemed as sacred, and rendered homage to in animal images, 
were all supposed to be attended by spiritual essences, 
whose power resided in the particular shape of the crea- 
tures venerated. 

The Persian Theogony not only includes all the ideas 
we have dwelt upon in other systems, but is divided by 
Zoroaster into interminable chains of Spiritual existences, 
two of whom, one good, and another evil, is assigned as an 
Attendant " Ferver," to every living creature. Besides 
these, are hosts of Elementary Spirits, assumed to exert a 
beneficent or malignant influence upon every particle of 
the vegetable and animal kingdoms. Zoroaster's system, 
like that of the ancient Hindoos and Egyptians, was full of 
high moral teachings, and, save for the cruelty and reckless 
waste of life manifested in its system of sacrificial rites, 
forms a code of ethics not inferior to the sweetness and 
beauty of the teachings ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth. 
Here as in Cabbalism, Spirit is assumed to be a primal 
essence, containing the archetypes of all ideas. God is the 



94 

one central source of Lis-ht — Ormuzd the first Divine em- 
anation, the King of Light. — Mithra and Arimanes, the 
next procedures, are representatives of the resplendent 
God of Light, heat, and goodness, and the terrific prince of 
cold, darkness, and evil. — All created forms are patterned 
after the archetypal ideas existing in the Divine Mind, and 
endless chains of good and evil Spirits, Angels, Genii, and 
Elementaries, fill up all spaces in the invisible realms in 
which matter floats. 

As in Chaldea, the most renowned methods of interpret- 
ing the will of God were by soothsaying and divination, so 
in Persia the favorite resort was to Astrology, The Per- 
sians claimed that the Stars were divine Scriptures, in 
which the order of visible nature was plainly mapped out ; 
that the numerous changes and configurations of the hea- 
venly bodies produced relative changes in the simplicity 
of the scheme indicated on the path of the Zodiac. That 
each star had its special influence upon the plant or living 
creature which was born during its ascendency. 

Minerals, earths, waters, and places, were directly gov- 
erned by planetary influence. The mind was governed 
by the phases of the moon. — All colored objects or glitter- 
ing stones by the Sun or one of the six planets ; in fact, 
the rise and fall of Nations and the destinies of individuals 
were spelled out by Persian Astrologers on the starry hea- 
vens, and he would have been considered an ignoramus or 
an audacious skeptic, worthy of death, who should presume 
to dispute the prophectic dictum of any well-versed Per- 
sian Astrologer. 

The Priests of this nation were called Magi, and it seems 
probable that this term, signifymg Wise 7)ien, was used for 
the first time in this connection. Besides the Art of As- 
trology and Soothsaying, in which the Persian Magi were 
instructed as part of their education, they practiced in 



95 

later days enchantment and divination, and as these arts 
began to be used popularly in other nations, and were often 
combined with Sorcery, Necromancy, and phases of Magic 
of the most questionable character, the term Magician was 
at length applied to those who abused the power of Magic, 
exercised it for unholy purposes, or by aid of evil spirits. 
It was in this sense that the writers of the Pentateuch 
designated those Priests of Egypt who contended with 
Moses. They called them Magicians^ whilst Moses in their 
phraseology was the Servant of God. They (the Magi- 
cians) acted under the influence of "Demons," Moses un- 
der that of the Hebrew's Tutelary " Deity." It is thus 
that we learn how the title of Magician — originally syn- 
onymous with superior wisdom and divine knowledge — 
may bfe used as a term of reproach by rival practitioners. 

To the egotistical translators of the Septuagint, the per- 
formances of Moses with frogs, serpents, lice and other 
abominations were the work of " God," acting through his 
chosen servant ; that of the Egyptian Priests, " Magic," a 
word as abominable in Jewish lips, as it was honorable 
amongst Egyptians or Persians. 

There is a Sanscrit word signifying worship, which 
somewhat resembles Magus, or Enchanter, a term synony- 
mous in Chaldaic, with the Persian Magian. The trans- 
lators of the Septuagint allege that the Bayblonian High 
Priest was called Rab Mog, or Mag ; hence it seems that 
Magic, Magian, Magician, and all their derivatives were, in 
the first instance, significant of deep religious meaning ; 
but subsequently became corrupted into base and injurious 
terms, by the misuse that was made of the power they 
referred to. 

In a curious old treatise, by Godwyn, on the manners, 
times and theological worship of the ancient Romans, pub- 
lished in 1622, there are the following items of informa- 



96 



tioii concerning the subdivisions of their Gods and Spirits, 
etc. : 

" Though Satan had much blinded the hearts of men in old times, yet was not 
the darkness so great, but that they did easily perceive that there was some gou- 
vernour, some first mover, as Aristotle saith ; some first originall of all goodnesse, as 
Plato teacheth; so that if any made this question whether there was a God or no, 
they were urged to confess the truth that there was a God ; yet were they very 
blind in discerning the true God, and hence hath been invented such a tedious cat- 
alogue of Gods, that, as Varro averreth, their number hath exceeded thirty thou- 
sand The second kinde of Gods were called Semides id est demi-Gods ; 

also, Indigites id est Gods adopted or canonized, or, men deified. For, as the 
Select Gods had possession of heaven by their own right, so these Gods canonized 
had it no other way than by right of donation, being therefore, translated into 
heaven, because they lived as Gods upon earth." Then follows a descrip- 
tion of the rites of canonization, unnecessary to quote. The author goes on to 
say : " But that we may understand what is meant by these Semones (Gods of 
the third order), we must rememeber that by them are signified — not the Gods 
that appertain to us — but the necessaries of man's life, as his victuals, cloathing 
and the like — to the which well-being of man were Gods of good and evil fortune, 
inclining to give or withhold. 

" We read, likewise, of divers names given to many Gods who did severally af- 
ford help unto many, so that they were called tutelares, such as had undertaken 
the protection of any City or Towne, and thence are named for the City or To wne, 
as, St. George, of England ; St. Denis, of Prance ; St. Patrick, of Ireland, etc., 
and the Komans, being fully persuaded of this kind of guard, held by tutelares, 
when they went about to beseige a Towne by certaine enchantments or spells, 
they would first call out the Tutelar God, because they deemed it impossible to 
captivate the City as long as these Gods were within, and least others might use 
the same means in besieging Rome, therefore, as divers authors have thought, the 
true name of the Roman City was never known, least thereby the name of their 

Tutelar God might be descryed And as they supposed some Tutelar spirit 

to have the charge of whole countries, so did they believe that others had the 
charge of particular men, and that so soon as any man was born, two spirits did 
presently accompany him invisibly, the one tearmed the good Angell, or houus 
Genius, persuading him to that which is good ; the other called the Malus Genius, 
or evil Angell, tempting to that which should be hurtful, insomuch that they 
thought all the actions of men were guided by these Genii, so that if any mis- 
fortune befel a man they would say, ' We have grieved our Genius,' or, ' Our 

Genius being displeased with us, or opposed to us.'" " These Genii were 

thought to be a middle essence between Gods and men." " They appear in 

divers forms, but oftener as a fierce tragicall man, as did the evil Genius who 
warned Brutus of his fate, or a decrepit old man, or a sad one, or in many such 
forms of anger or woe as mankind doth assume." 



97 



SUPPLEMENT TO SECTIONVI. 

Fragments froTn the Jewish Oabhala — Quotations from 
Classical Authors. 

One of the most curious compendiums of ideality and 
truth, allegory and veiled mysticism extant, is to be found 
in the ancient Cabbala of the Jews. 

This celebrated work is a collection of writings and 
allusions to traditions of still more authority, supposed to 
have been communicated by God to Adam, by Adam to 
Seth, by Seth lost or parted with in some mysterious 
manner, but renewed again in oral teachings from the God 
of Sinai to Moses, from him revealed to Joshua, thence 
given to the seventy Elders, and thus transmitted to divers of 
the learned Jews, who dissented from the more direct asser- 
tions of the Talmud. There is another collection of writ- 
ings and traditions bearing the title of Cabbala, attributed 
to Oriental scholars, but as this remarkable work is of 
little or no value without a key which can only be furnished 
by certain Oriental fraternities, its transcript would be of 
no value to the general reader. 

Passing over the sources from whence the Jews pretend 
to derive their Cabbala, it is well to notice one peculiarity 
in its mode of inscription which may serve to explain the 
many confused and contradictory statements to which it 
has given rise. 

The writers of the Jewish Cabbala evidently labored, 
and with remarkable success too, to conceal the true mean- 
ing of what they wrote. 

Thus some letters are so shortened as to leave the word 
intact, but the meaning masked ; others are lengthened. 



98 

crooked, or interpolated with seemingly unmeaning points, 
all with the same design ; for example, in the sentence, 
Abraham came to tveep for Sara, the letter Caph is smaller 
than the others, by which Cabbalistic readers understand 
that as Sara was old, her spouse only wept for her a little. 

In a certain passage the syllables Isch, signifying a man, 
and Bscha, a woman, will be found with a point against the 
word man, absent in writing the word woman ; next there 
occurs a point in the word woman, lacking in writing 
the word man ; — when the two points are combined in the 
same sentence, they signify God ; — when one alone is 
there, the word fire is implied. Without the pointing, the 
idea conveyed is, man and ivoman do agree well together. 
With the interception of the subtle points m the peculiar 
mode of Cabbalistic writings, the sentence would read. 
When man and woman agree together^ God is with them, when 
they disagree, fire is between them. 

The study of a life time would fail to master all the sub- 
tleties with which these writings abound, and the deter- 
mination which the authors of the Jewish Cabbala mani- 
fest to veil the meaning of their sentences under the mask 
of cypher ; and hence it is doubtful how much the popular 
translations of this celebrated collection can be relied on, 
especially when they are given to the world by Mystics, 
as much interested in reserving Cabbalistic ideas, as their 
original authors. 

The Talmud very probably contains a fair digest of the 
Cabbala, although the latter is richer in occult lore. From 
a comparison of the two we may glean the following sum- 
mary of ancient Jewish opinions, concerning the Divine 
order of cosmogony. 

" God is a Trinity," to wit : Light, Spirit and Life. His 
first emanations are also triune, namely : En Soph, the 
masculine of Infinity ; Sophia, the feminine of Wisdom 



99 

and the Word, the divine Activity proceeding from the 
union of the two. A third triad of principles is indicated, 
namely : Matter, the formative mould ; Life, the active prin- 
ciple of formation ; and Soul, the eternal and infinite form 
of Spirit. Much stress is laid on the ineffable mystery of 
Triune being — that is, " Three in one, and one in three;" 
also, on the science of numerals, the exact principle of 
mathematics, and the immutable order by which creation 
is designed, on geometrical proportions. Mathematics and 
geometry are as inextricably interwoven with Cabbalistic 
ideas as Spirit and matter. 

The first man — Adam Kadman — is mysteriously mixed 
up with the Jewish Christ — the Adam of the fall ; King 
David^ and the original " cmly begotten Son of God." It 
would take all the craft of the unscrupulous Eusebius to 
disentangle the exact relations of Adam Kadman with 
his subsequent appearances on earth, and all the faith of 
the most unquestioning of Christian believers to swallow 
the Cabbalistic methods of interpreting the scheme of un- 
accountable perdition, and unaccountable salvation for 
man. There is some probability that the wild and unsas- 
tained theories of modern Re-incarnationists borrow their 
fantasies from these Cabbalistic ramblings ; still, there is 
much of beauty, much too of scientific value, in the sugges- 
tions thrown out concerning the just proportions of the 
universe, and the profound mathematical bases on which the 
structure of creation rests. — To a great extent the scheme of 
descending emanatious in creation, and ascending spheres 
providing for the progress of fallen spirits and elementary 
existences, agrees with the views of other ancient Theolo- 
gians, whose opinions we have cited. Cabbalistic writers 
are very diffuse in their descriptions of different orders of 
" Resplendent An}i;els," Tutelary Spirits, Guardian Angels 
of every grade and function. Souls of men. Spirits, and 



100 

legions of Elementaries, filling all space, crowding all ele- 
ments, and peopling the universe with realms of Spiritual 
existence corresponding to the Archetypes, Spiritual prin- 
ciples and ultimates of form. 

We shall have occasion to draw from the Cabbala again 
in our sections on Magic ; meantime we close this brief 
notice by affirming that the very best and most reliable 
digests of Cabbalistic wisdom are to be found in the songs 
of Orpheus, the philosophy of Plato, the doctrines of Py- 
thagoras, Appohmius of Tyana, and the modern mystics. 
Van Helmont and Behraen. Many others have borrowed 
fragments from this collection of writings, and though we 
are unprepared to assert that the celebrated Greek sages 
named above derived their ideas from the Cabbala^ we are 
satisfied that they all and each drew from the same source, 
and that the fountains of wisdom that supplied them, poured 
forth their treasures from the grand old ranges of the 
mighty Himalayas, and trembled in the dewy chalices of 
the white lotuses that fringed the shores of the sacred Nile. 

The more we pursue the wisdom of the ancients, through 
all their ramifications of varied speech, allegorical forms, 
and symbolic representation, the more surely we shall 
come to the conclusion that they are all tributary streams 
from one central source ; that this source was the Book of 
Nature, written over with flowers and bloom on the fair 
green earth, with suns and stars in the spangled vault of 
Heaven, — that the great Schoolmaster, who first instructed 
men and angels in the letters of this divine alphabet, was 
God, the Father of Spirits ; that the means of teaching 
were intuition, inspiration, and direct communion with 
Angels, the messengers of God ; — magic, as the artificer of a 
new form of communion, when the child-like early man 
lost the power of intuition, and broke the links of direct 
communion, by the corruptions of a materialistic civiliza- 



101 

tion, and all means combined, when the pure heart and 
the clear brain can elevate the soul to its native heavens, 
and learn to master the occult forces of nature by science. 
Perhaps we may never return to the simple and child-like 
attitude which the early men of the earth sustained to- 
wards their God. 

They conversed with their tutelary spirits as a man 
speaks with his friend. They looked, and saw that God 
was. They listened, and God's Angels spoke to them in 
voices as clear as the sighing of the breeze or the mur mur- 
ing of the brook. They reflected, and their past spiritual 
origin and present destiny cast their images on the mir- 
ror of their minds as truthfully as the limpid waters of the 
lake reflect the lustre of the stars. 

Had you asked the intuitional man of old, how he knew 
these things^ he would have gazed upon you with astonish- 
ment, and questioned back, " How is it possible that you 
should fail to know them V Socrates said, " I respect my 
own soul, though I cannot see it." 

The men of our purely materialistic and external age 
doubt the existence of their own souls because they cannot 
see them. 

How then can they expect to see spirits, hear their voices, 
or apprehend the nature of that God " who is a Spirit " ] 



102 



PAKT II 




SECTION V^Il. 

Spiritism and Magic — Mundane, Suh-Mundane, and 
Super -Mundane Sp ir itisin. 



% 



Man's earliest religious history is also the history of 
Spiritism, or his communion with the realms of Spiritual 
existence. 

To effect this communion, the human organism must 
be adapted to the perception of Spiritual entities, or else 
means must be found to promote this adaptation. 

We have mis-spent our time in sketching out the an- 
cient forms of religious belief, if we have failed to show 
that men once communed with their Tutelary Gods and 
ministering spirits intuitively, inspirationally, and even 
directly, but that in process of time, either by reason of 



^ 



103 

changes in man's receptivity, or from the altered conditions 
which civilization imposes, that communion became inter- 
rupted, then more and more difficult ; in some periods it 
ceased altogether, and finally became limited to a few ex- 
ceptionally endowed individuals, in which category (with 
occasional irruptions of a more diffusive character) it has 
continued, down to the present day. 

The spontaneous and natural communion with spiritual 
beings, whether it be exercised by communities or indivi- 
duals, we may term Spiritism. The arts by which this 
communion is procured through prepared conditions, should 
with equal propriety be designated Magic, and whether 
these arts be practiced for good or evil purposes, their 
methods must involve a knowledge of the occult forces ex- 
isting in nature, and the means of calling them forth and 
utilizing them. If the understanding and application of 
Nature's laws in any one department of being is a science, 
then must all knowledge and all arts, which are but the 
applications of knowledge, be included in the term science, 
hence magic, however ominous its name may sound in su- 
perstitious ears, and however much it may have been per- 
verted to purposes of evil, is still a branch of science, and 
as such, should be studied and legitimately used. 

Magic may be termed the science of Spiritism, and 
whilst it would be as idle to tender it to the acceptance of 
those whose natural endowments supply them with the art 
it professes to teach, as to paint the cheek of the rose, or 
blanch the lily white, its careful study may furnish us with 
a clue to the better use and guidance of natural gifts, and 
where these are lacking, instruct us in the methods of sup- 
plying the deficiency. In order to point out the spheres 
of power in which magic operates, it is necessary to define 
the order of communion which nature permits, through the 
exceptional endowments of her most highly gifted children, 
the world's Seers, Prophets, Sybils, and Mediums. 



104 

The first gift included in the discernment of Spiritual 
beings is that of vision, or the faculty of seeing Spirits, re- 
cognizing their signs in aerial pictures, their writings when 
inscribed in spiritual substances, also of perceiving the 
spirits of fellow-men, reading the thoughts and character- 
istics masked to the mortal eye, and taking cognizance 
generally of the spiritual part of things in the Universe. 

The second gift of the prophetic order is, the faculty of 
hearing sounds, whether in the form of spirit voices, music, 
or other vibrations made on the ethereal medium in which 
spirits live, rather than on the atmosphere which mortals 
breathe and dwell in. 

The power of seeing and hearing spirits, opens up two 
of the principal avenues of intelligence to our Souls, and in 
like manner, the spiritual senses of smell, taste, and touch 
can be operated upon. 

Through one or other of these gates to the inner con- 
sciousness, all spiritualistic phenomena must act, but the 
phenomena themselves are very various. 

Sometimes the Soul of man itself, looks forth through its 
material encasements, acting from within, and sees, hears, 
tastes, smells, and touches spiritual entities. 

Sometimes ministering spirits produce effects acting from 
without upon the inner senses of man. Both methods are 
common, both belong to the one gifted individual. 

Sometimes the influx of spiritual ideas is so silent, 
natural, and unmarked by physical disturbances, that their 
subject knows not that an Angel speaks, or that the soul 
has transcended the laws of sensuous perception, and derived 
ideas unconsciously from its near proximity to the realms 
of spiritual entities. 

To account for the operation of the powers described 
above, it is necessary to revert to the last section of the 
First Part, and bear in mind, that the realms of spiritual 



105 

being are very near, in fact, all around and about us ; that, 
though spirits of every grade and class swarm through the 
universe, ranged in their different spheres and orders, yet 
that the " spirit world," or the spheres through which the 
souls of men are making pilgrimage upwards and onwards 
to heaven, are approximate to this earth, even as the soul 
of man is related to his body ; that these spheres inter- 
penetrate every atom of matter on this globe with a spirit- 
ual element, and again, as the disembodied spirits of earth 
are in the most direct, natural, and harmonious proximity 
to their still embodied friends, it is to the spirit spheres of 
humanity, that the most ready access of the human soul is 
obtamed, and through which the most constant influx into 
the natural world transpires. 

To expect that the realms of disembodied human spirits 
should be the nearest in atmospheric proximity to man, the 
most in accordance with his grade of intelligence, and the 
most prompt to serve, bless, and instruct him by ties of 
love, kindness, and adaptation, is just as rational as to sup- 
pose that the human mother would be the first to render 
aid to her sufiering child, or that the child would be more 
likely to appeal for that aid to a tender parent than to 
some unsympathizing stranger. This phase of intercourse 
between spirits and mortals, we distinguish as Mundane 
Spiritism, aad this we claim to be the most natural, direct, 
and spontaneous product of that divine plan which connects 
all conditions of being, from the highest to the lowest, in 
one unbroken chain of love and harmony, the links of 
which are millions of spheres of super-mundane, mun- 
dane, and sub-mundane spiritual existences. 

There are but few analogies discoverable on the surface 
of mundane life, between the laws which separately govern 
Spirit and matter, but the closer we pursue our researches, 
the more clearly we recognize correspondences, if not actual 



lOG 



analogies, between these elements. Amongst these are the 
laws of physical and moral gravitation. 

As the heaviest and grossest bodies sink to the centre, 
so the least intelligent and exalted conditions of spiritual 
being obey the same law, and hence, sub-mundane Spirit- 
ism consists in communion with those lower orders of 
being, who are in point of position in the Universe, no less 
than in moral and mental unfoldment, lower than man, 
and whom the philosophers and mystics of old have signi- 
ficantly denominated, " the Elementaries." 

It would be impossible to do justice to the immense 
multitudes of those beings who crowd the elements, and 
exist in all grades of semi-spiritual, semi-material bodies, 
from such progressed, but still rudimental conditions, 
as almost impinge upon the perfection of manhood, 
down to the " Pigmies," who emerge from rude, almost 
inorganic life, evolved from minerals, plants, water, earth, 
atmosphere and fire. 

There are luxuriant and enormous growths, gigantic 
forms, exceeding the proportions of humanity, who abound 
in forests, mountains, hills, and desert places ; stunted, 
dwarfish beings who frequent mines, caverns, and the 
deep recesses of earth, corresponding to the undeveloped 
elements of inorganic nature. 

Beautiful, though still embryonic existences there are, 
who belong to the finer spheres, corresponding to flowers 
and air. Fantastic and difiusive shapes of elementary life 
crowd the waters, and resplendent globular unparticled 
essences exist, and can be detected in the realms of light 
and heat represented by fire. All are included in the title 
of Elementaries. All possess diflerent functions, exert 
power in the particular elements to which they belong, 
are neither good nor evil 'per se, but malignant or benefi- 
cent in part, to those whom they affect or dislike ; they 



107 

possess, in short, varied powers and characteristics, and 
communion with them may be classed in the category of 
Sub-Mundane Spiritism. 

Myriads upon myriads there are in whom special animal 
instincts prevail, giving to their embryonic forms a simil- 
arity to the creatures whose natures they correspond to. 
These elementary spirits are all ranged and classed in the 
divine order of creation, under the same law of adaptation 
that is manifest in the plants, animals and other products 
of different countries and climes. Every creature is as 
much in its place, and an inhabitant of its appropriate 
sphere, as is the material particle to which it corres- 
ponds. Hanging on the same divine thread of beneficence 
which binds man to the heart of Deity, these Elementaries 
could no more be riven away from the interminable chain 
of being, than the Planetary order of the skies could af- 
ford to part with Mercury, the youngest child of the solar 
system, because it is not so perfectly developed as Mars, 
nor yet cast out of the shining, starry family that circles 
round the parent sun, the planet Earth, because it has not 
attained to the size, lustre and glory of Jupiter. 

" I number up my Jewels !" says the God of the spark- 
ling sky ; and which of his blazing sons of light could he 
dispense with, without throwing the whole scheme of re- 
volving worlds out of eternal harmony 7 

" I number up my Jewels !" cries the Tuletary Angel of 
Earth, in the tender and merciful tones of divine Father- 
hood ; and which of his immortal soul gems could he afford 
to annihilate as his vision ranges , and his justice prevails, 
from the monarch on his throne, to the dying wretch in 
the cell of earthly condemnation ? 

" I number up my Jewels !" cries the Archangel of the 
grand solar system, and which of his minutest sparks of 
spiritual fire could he afford to extinguish, whether it 



108 

blazed in the soul of a Copernicus, or glimmered in the 
uncouth form of a pigmy Elementary, on the lowest round 
of the ladder of sub-mundane pilgrimage 7 

Oh, proud, disdainful man ! disdainful and proud only in 
your ignorance ! Which of you can say from whence you 
came, or deny what you might have been, however you 
may rejoice in the height to which you have now attained ; 
however you may rest in the assurance that there is no 
such thing as retrogression, and that you cannot sink lower 
than you will to fall 7 Which of you, who so cheerfully 
accept that vague theory of inductive science, that teaches 
you to believe men were once a'pes^ need shrink back with 
contempt from the idea that your spirits were as rudimen- 
tal as your bodies ? Which of you that so fiercely reject 
the Darwinian theory, yet offer no better hypothesis for 
human origin — who would rather fancy you were nothing^ 
than anything lower than your arrogance deems worthy of 
you — which of you can believe that from nothing sprang 
something, or that you suddenly appeared on the theatre 
of existence, a full-fledged immortal Soul, with a whither- 
ward, but no whence — a heavenly goal to attain to, but no 
beginning to spring from ? 

The world that sees its Julius Caesars and Napoleon 
Bonapartes commence life as helpless, wailing babes, and 
end it as Masters of Europe, and Lords over millions of 
their fellow creatures, still scoffs at the idea that the race 
of man ever had a similar infancy. 

The full-grown man of the nineteenth century repels 
with indignation the idea that he could have ever been 
related to the world of elementary being, and can see no 
justice, divinity, beauty or order in the scheme that sows 
a germ of spiritual life in the most rudimental of material 
forms, and then expands it through a natural series of 
births and deaths, until it becomes fitted to take its place 



109 

as a purely perfected and self-conscious spirit entity, in 
those realms where it awaits, in common with myriads of 
other spirits, a mortal birth on this or some other earth in 
the Universe. Yet such is God's plan, at least such does it 
appear to the most patient of students ; those who have 
toiled through the esoteric significations of human history, 
and learned their spiritualistic lessons from the very beings 
who are in the experience of the truths they reveal. Such 
is God's plan, unless the philosophic minds, who have gath- 
ered up the accumulated wisdom of past ages, and studied 
nature and the mysteries of spiritual existence in their pro- 
foundest depths, have learned less than modern theorists, 
who never study such subjects at all. 

Either the wisdom and occult knowledge of cycles ot 
ages is worth less than the scornful denial of utterly unin- 
formed skepticism, or our brief review of sub-mundane 
Spiritism is a correct one as far as it goes, 

Reserving more particular descriptions of the Elemen- 
taries for future sections, we now proceed to notice the 
realms of super-mundane Spiritism, 

Here, legions of Archangels and Angels throng the Uni- 
verse, of whom the imagination may conceive, but to whose 
being and nature the power of language can do no justice. 

In whatever realms of spiritual life the entranced soul 
of the ecstatic may wander, with whatever resplendent 
beings that soul may be permitted to hold converse, the 
mind is always directed to higher states, and higher indi- 
vidualities still. Like the revelating Angel addressing 
the Apocalyptic writer John, every Spirit or Angel that 
has ever communed with man, ignores worship, and as- 
cribes all power and all glory to something still beyond — 
to Deific existences, incomprehensible, but ever felt in the 
understanding, and ever holding that central point of all 
devotion and worship, which we vaguely call God. Bear 



no 

this fact in mind, and we shall be held guiltless of pre- 
sumption when we write of what the eyes of Seers have 
beheld, of spirits with whom our fathers, like John of old, 
have identified even the Lord of life and light, and striven 
to worship as God ; of mighty Angels, who, like the spirit 
that spoke through the thunders of Sinai, or from the 
midst of the burning bush, seem to man the last apex of 
glory on which the finite mind rests its conceptions of 
God. Higher and still higher, ever stretching away where 
roads are made of star dust, and paths are strewn with 
glittering Suns ; where time is no more, and space is lost 
in infinity ; stretching away into hemispheres where new 
sidereal heavens form the boundary walls and gateways 
to new corridors of an Universe wherein, end there is none. 

Loose the reins of the imagination, and let the fiery 
steeds of a new mental Phoebus seek to traverse these high- 
roads of infinity ! People them all with Angels ascending 
and still ascending in the scale of grandeur, power, and 
immensity, and then question of the highest still, and still 
the choiring worlds will answer, " Higher yet ! higher yet! 
There still are realms of being higher yet !" 

We veil our presumptuous eyes against these vain specu- 
lations, retreat to our spheres of littleness, content to find 
that Angels, Guardian spirits, and Spirit friends, surround 
us, minister to oar earthly powers and functions only as 
our minds can grasp and comprehend them, and thus we 
may concentrate our wandering thoughts on the firm 
assurance that God is, though man may never know Him, 
and rest in the certainty that all we hope and strive for, 
will yet be ours, as the heirs oi immortal progress. 

Super-mundane Spiritism teaches of Tutelary Spirits or 
Gods, and Planetary A.ngels. 

The Jehovah of the Jews affords a well marked defi- 
nition of the ancient belief in Eloihim, or Tutelary Gods. 



Ill 

The reveiating Angels so often described by the He- 
brew Prophets, and He who was claimed by the authors 
of the Apocalypse to have mapped out the masonic order 
of creation in that gorgeous vision, said to have been shown 
in the Isle of Patmos, or the isolation of the entranced 8out^ 
clearly illustrate the nature of those celestial visitants 
who in the Oriental dispensation, talked with men, face to 
face. In our degenerate and unspiritual age, we have little 
to illuminate our prosaic lives, save the revelations of our 
Fathers. From time to time, bright beings , flash athwart 
our path, more glorious than the forms of men or spirits, 
and the assurance that the realms of space must be filled 
with the messengers of God, induces us to yield acceptance 
to the Cabbalistic division of the higher orders of Angels 
into " Thrones, Dominions, Powers ; — Angels of the Plan- 
ets, Tutelary Spirits, Guardians of Nations, Cities, Men, 
the Souls of Ancestors, and beloved Spirit friends." The 
reader will remember the description so often rendered by 
Sweedenborg in his ecstatic wanderings through Celestial 
spheres, of his having seen God as a Spiritual Sun, The 
same statement is made by several of the best modern 
Brahmins who are Seers. It was re-affirmed by Cahagnet's 
Somnambules under the control of many spirits who pro- 
fessed to have beheld the glory of this Spiritual Sun, and 
it was stated in opposition to all the preconceived opinions 
of surrounding listeners, by the Spirits who spoke with 
human voices at Koons's Spirit room in the opening of the 
American Spiritual Dispensation. 

It has frequently been stated to the author by teaching 
Spirits, that the Tutelary Angel of every planet appears 
only as a Spiritual Sun, himself deriving light, heat, force, 
and being, from the Central Sun of the Universe ; that 
these stupendous and sublime Centres, the Spiritual Suns of 
Earths, Planets, and Satellites, impart their life-giving 



112 

light, radiance and gravitating forces to the Physical Suns 
of the systems to which they belong ; — that these Physical 
Suns are the most progressed aggregati(ms of world mat- 
ter in the Universe, hence become centres and parents 
of revolving Satellites, who derive a certain measure of 
light and heat from the Sun of their system, but like that 
material body, they would fade, perish, and dissolve into 
/ their original elements, were they not vitalized by the 
I Spiritual Sun, which is to that system, as the Soul to the 
1 human body. 

To the true Hierophant who can connect ancient mys- 
teries with personal spiritual endowments, those who 
wear the Prophet's mantle, yet analyze its fabric by the 
light of modern science. Tutelary Spirits and Planetary 
Angels reveal themselves as distinctly now, as when they 
spoke from between the Cherubim and Seraphim of the 
" Ark of the Covenant," or redected their lustrous rays 
from mimic skies, outstretched above the Hierophants of 
ancient mysteries. 

Planetary Spirits respond to invocations from the sin- 
cere Spiritualist, and often hold watch and ward over the 
favored ones of earth to whom, through prepared conditions^ 
they communicate many of the great truths of the Uni- 
verse unattainable to mortals without their aid. Few of 
them are inferior to the highest of human intelligences, 
save the Spirits of Mercury and Venus, who should seldom 
be invoked or encouraged to commune with Earth. 

Generally speaking, the Planetary Spirits are not at- 
tracted to earth, except on special missions, or by evoca- 
tions procured as above stated, through prepared conditions, 
of which more hereafter. 

Ranging under the category of Super-mundane Spiritism, 
we place the Souls of men who have attained to the high- 
est conditions of Angelic exaltation, and who are attracted 



113 

to Earth as messengers of beneficence, beauty, and good- 
ness. 

Souls of men that have enjoyed ages of progress, and 
attained to radiant conditions of celestial happiness, some- 
times return to earth for material knowledge, to study 
lower conditions of being, and gather elements of use, im- 
parting in return the noblest teachings, and very generally 
associating their mission with some master mind of earth, 
through whom they become, by inspiration and heavenly 
influence, the promoters of mighty reforms, great upheavals 
of human thought, culminating in social, political or reli- 
gious revolutions. 

On every round of that visionary ladder, whose foot is 
on earth, whose apex in heaven — Angels who have once 
been men, Spirits who have lived and labored on earth and 
risen from the ashes of death, victor-browed, to a trium- 
phant inheritance beyond ; household " lares " — heart 
loves who have just left us, but still hover on the threshold 
they have crossed, to smooth our rough and rugged path 
over the stones their torn feet have trod — all such minis- 
ters of love and blessing as these, ascend and descend on 
this mystic ladder, forming an interminable chain of love 
and harmony between the highest and the lowest, connect- 
ing each and all by the links of sympathy, bearing up the 
tired hands that are dropping life's burdens for very wear- 
iness — catching at the outstretched arms that are tossed 
abroad in the agony of frantic supplication to the God of 
many creeds and nations, tenderly wafting up to heaven 
the piteous prayers that long ago they lisped forth in ac- 
cents as faltering as our own, and returning inspiration ibr 
aspiration, peace and blessing for the incoherent appeals of 
human ignorance and impotence. 

These are the beings that 6.11 up the sum of man's limited 
and finite span of knowledge, concerning Super-mundane 
Spiritism.' 



114 



SECTION VIII. 

Man tJie Microcosm of the Unimrse. — Man the Trinity of 
elements ; Soul, Spirit, Matter. — Opinions of the Ancients 
concerning the Astral Spirit — Boslcrucianism — The 
Astral Spirit, Astral Light — The Ancient and Modern 
Priest. 

The modus operandi by which the worlds invisible to the 
outer senses of man can become so manifest as to convince 
him of their existence, must depend first on some element 
resident in the human organism, and next upon correspon- 
dential means operating upon man, from the invisible 
realms of being. 

Were there not such operations mutually subsisting 
between the worlds of spirit and matter, all man's imagin- 
ings however sublime, all his intuitive faculties, however 
penetrating, and even the witness of his own interior 
nature, would never be susceptible of demonstrating God 
in the light of reason, never bring him face to face with 
Spirit as the absolute esse of being, never enable him to 
construct such a religious belief as the Father could com- 
municate to the child, or the Priest impart to the People. 
There can be no doubt that the Soul's deepest and most 
intuitive perceptions of truth, are its own most accept- 
able witnesses, still these are incommunicable, and the 
spirit's witness of itself, its Deity, and its faith in immortal- 
ity, can never be fully translated into human speech. Hap- 
pily, however, for those blunted natures which are not 
developed up to transcendent heights of spiritual truth, the 
realms of invisible being approximate to earth, have found 
means to establish processes of communion which place 



115 

their existence, varied offices of ministry, even their very 
natures, beyond all shadow of doubt or denial to those who 
care to consult the occult, as well as the material side of 
human history. 

Setting the question of evidence aside however, or leav- 
ing it only as a subject of warfare between contentious 
factions of materialists and creedists, our part is to examine 
into the methods by which the communion between man 
and the invisible worlds of being transpire. 

Mere opinions concerning the facts of the phenomena, 
furnish no clue to their means of occurrence. 

Spirits come and go, apparently by no law analogous to 
those which govern human action. 

Beings of an order wholly different in their essential 
nature, and similar only in form and intelligence to man, 
interpenetrate his atmosphere like the magical appearance 
of the lightning's flash, and disappear in the same inexplic. 
able mystery. 

Sounds, sights, movements, impressions, sometimes 
appealing to man with the subtle semblance of a vision, 
sometimes compelling him by a force he cannot resist, all 
captivate his senses, sway his soul, and fill him with awe 
and wonder . 

The commonplace and secularizing modes of spiritual 
intercourse that have prevailed throughout the second half 
of our present century, have doubtless tended to strip the 
world of supernaturalism of its terrors, as well as much of 
its exaltation and spiritual beauty, still it has effected a 
wonderful revolution in man's intellectual appreciation of 
spiritual existence, confirming him in knowledge upon 
subjects that were before divided between myth and super- 
stitious credulity, and bringing under the dominion of 
reason and judgment problems that were deemed hereto- 
fore insoluble upon any other ground than the assumption 
of miracle. 



116 

In treating of nature as of the visible and sensuous uni- 
verse, and super-nature as of the invisible and spiritual, we 
are no longer driven to the necessity of premising our phi- 
losophy with an if, such and such events really transpired, or 
leaning upon the authority of some great Sage or world 
renowned Pundit, before we can demand acceptance for 
our facts. 

However commonplace or even puerile many of the 
phases of modern Spiritual communion may be, however 
foolishly that communion may have been abused, by mak- 
ing it the shibboleth for the introduction of all sorts of 
subversive ideas into social, religious, and even political 
life, the immense flood of light it has diffused upon the 
great problems of life, death, immortality and the nature 
of the human spirit, rank it as one of the most revolution- 
ary and powerful revelations that have ever been vouch- 
safed to man since the closing up of the Oriental and 
Mythological Dynasties. 

It is as much by the positive, sensuous demonstrations 
afforded to us in this great modern Spiritual outpouring, 
as through a study of ancient or mediaeval records, that we 
are enabled to present the composite but absolute philoso- 
phy of Spiritism recited in this Section ; but here let us 
premise, that we do not propose to pause in our definitions 
to say — this is Artephius, and that is Plato ; thus argued 
the Fire Philosophers of the middle ages, and thus mused 
the Cabbalists of antiquity. Now, as heretofore, our refer- 
ence to authority must be sought for in the context of the 
work, rather than in the list of names cited. 

Man is a Microcosm or Universe in little — as such, he 
is the conservator of all forces, the image of all objective 
forms, the embodiment of all subjective ideas, and the con- 
necting link between all existences, higher and lower than 
himself 



117 

In himself, taken to pieces by chemistry and analyzed 
by the display of his powers and relations to the invisible 
world, he is a trinity of elements, namely : body, spirit, 
and soul. His body is a conservator of all the powers and 
functions of matter ; his spirit, the animating pnnciple, is 
made up of all the forces we vaguely call life ; his soul 
is the pure Deific, and immortal essence whose attribute is 
Will or Intelligence. It is the attempt to analyze these 
three elements, which has formed a groundwork of philos- 
ophy, and a theme of learned speculation, for thousands of 
years. 

Judging from effects rather than asumed causes, may we 
not believe with the " Fire Philosophers" of the middle 
ages, that the soul is like its source — the Central Sun of 
being- — in its nature and essence pure, unalloyed, Spiritual 
Light "? 

That it is the invisible and infinitely sublimated Spirit 
of Fire — not the gross visible element that can be seen 
felt, and apprehended by the senses, — but that wonderful 
innermost light, which, whilst it reveals and proves all 
things in its own manifestation, is itself invisible, unknown 
and uncomprehended 1 

It is this essential, innermost and divine principle of 
soul which survives all change, which is neither subject to 
decay nor disintegration ; which is the spark derived from 
Deity— the Alpha and Omega of being— and the link which 
unites the Creature to the Creator. 

Encompassing this divine essence of soul, and clothing 
it as a spiritual body, is the subtle and refined element 
which, in its effects, is force ; in its action, through or- 
ganic bodies, is life; and in its all-pervading influence 
throughout the realms of space, is vaguely termed mag- 
netism and electricity. 

It is the second of that grand trinity of principles, 
whose union constitutes man a living being. 



118 

It is this element which we described in our first sec- 
tion, as recognized throughout the Universe, by the appar- 
ent duality of its modes, called attraction and repulsion, 
or centrifugal and centripetal force. As it is in the realm of 
this all-pervading life principle that we find our sole expla- 
nation of the various magical operations of spirit power, 
we must dwell somewhat at length upon a description of 
its character and functions. 

It has often been stated by Seers and illuminated " Sen- 
sitives," that there were many layers or strata of this 
spiritual body, of more or less attenuation, in proportion to 
their distance from the soul, or nearness to the physical 
body. These rings, or spheres, are called, collectively, the 
Astral Spirit, from the fact that the element itself is de- 
rived, like the pure essence of the soul, from the great 
Spiritual Sun of the Universe, from whom emanate, and 
to whom return all rays of light, heat, force, motion, 
power and being that fill the Universe of forms. This 
Astral Spirit is often mis-called in modern phraseology, the 
" magnetic body," the " nerve am^a," " magnetism," 
" electricity," etc., etc. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, 
who writes equally in the spirit of ancient Cabbalism, and 
still later Gnosticism, terms this element in man, " The 
Spiritual body," a phrase which corresponds well to the 
still more correct expression of '•' The Astral Spirit." In 
organic bodies we shall continue thus to term it ; in the 
realms of space it is more proper to speak of it as the 
" Astral light." It is to the Universe of inorganic forms, 
what the Soul is to the body, its spirit — life or animating 
principle. 

The Rosicracians — a sect who obtained much notoriety 
about the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but of whose 
actual origin, tenets and very existence, no reliable infor- 
mation has ever been generally circulated — maintained 



119 

that the last analysis of the Supreme Being would fail to 
discover any other existence than that of a Central Spir- 
itual Sun — an Infinite, Eternal, uncreated and incompre- 
hensible One alone, whose attributes were light and heat, 
whose manifestation was the Universe, revealed by light, 
energized into forms, suns, systems, worlds, men and 
things, by that spiritual heat whose last gross external 
exhibition is fire. 

In this sense, the term repulsion, which has been treated 
as an attribute of matter, is accounted for by the energy 
with which heat burns, consumes, disintegrates, and drives 
off one particle from another ; whilst attraction, also sup- 
posed to be an attribute of matter, is but the natural cohe- 
sion of particles, upon which the restless energy of heat 
either does not act, or becomes modified by the solidarity 
of the masses acted upon. Thus then, repulsion is the 
ONE universal law of motion, which itself is produced by 
heat ; and attraction is only the absence of heat, not a true 
force. 

Inertia is the only property of matter in this category 
— heat or repulsion its counteracting force — attraction, the 
exhibition of the vis inertia of atoms. 

We do not care to dismiss these propositions without a 
farther elaboration of their basic idea, and for this purpose 
we propose to offer a few excerpts from one of those writ- 
ers who has assumed the office of describing the principles 
of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood. As far as the opinions 
of this remarkable association can be defined in lan- 
guage, the quotations selected will give a fair idea of their 
views on the subject under discussion : 

" If the above abstractions are caught by the thinker, it will appear no wonder 
that the ancient people considered that they saw God, that is, with all their inner- 
most possibility of thought — in Fire — which Fire is not our vulgar, gross Fire, 
neither is it even the purest material or electric fire, which has still something of 
the base, bright light of the world about it ; but it is an occult, mysterious, super- 



120 



natural Fire— uot magnetic — and yet a real, sensible mind. It is the inner Light, 
the God, containing all things, the soul of all things, into whose inexpressibly in- 
tense, all-consuming, all-creating, divine, though fiery essence, all the worlds in 
succession will fall ; back into whose arms of Immortal Light on the other side, 
as again receiving them, the worlds driven off into space and being heretofore, by 

the Divine energy will again rush back to him." 

" The hollow world, in which that essence of things called Fire, plays, in its es- 
cape in violent agitation — to us combustion — is deep down within us, deep sunken 
inside of the time stages of which we are, in the flesh, rings of being, subsidences 

of spirit." " N'arrowly considered, it will be found that all religions 

transcend up into this spiritual Fire-floor, on which, so to speak, the phases of 
time were laid. Material Fire, which is brightness, as the matter upon which it 
preys is darkness — is the shadow of the true Spirit Light, which invests itself in 
fire as a mask, in which alone it can act possibly on matter. Thus material light 
being the opposite rather than the expression of God,' the Egyptians — who were 
undoubtedly acquainted with the Fire revelation — could not represent God as 
light — material light. They therefore expressed their idea of Deity by darkness. 
Their adoration was paid to darkness, for in this they bodied forth the image 
of the Eternal." "Though fire is an element in which everything in- 
heres, and of which it is the life, still it is itself an element existing in a second 
non-terrestrial, non-physical, ethereal fire, in which the first, or terrestrial coarse 
fire, flickers, wayes, brandishes, consumes, destroys. The first is natural, material, 
gross ; but this familiar element, seen and known in the natural world as fire, is 
contained in a celestial, unparticled. infinitely extended medium — which celestial 
fire is its matrix, and of which, in this human body, we know nothing." 

We here interrupt these excerpts — rendered chiefly as 
fragmentary representations of Rosicrucian ideas on the 
Deity — to interpret the obscure language of the writer, 
and state that the celestial fire referred to in the above 
passage, is the all-pervading element we have described, 
which, in its action through space, is termed the Astral 
Light, and in its investiture of the soul as a spiritual body, 
is termed the Astral Spirit. The innermost of the Rosi- 
crucian Celestial Fire, like that of the human spirit, is 
the incomprehensible essence of light, not its substance, 
Soul. Robert Fludd, a Rosicrucian mystic of the middle 
ages, teaches that the Macrocosmos^ or great Universe of 
intelligible and intelligent forms, is divided into three prin- 
cipal regions, which are denominated the Empyreum, the 
^thereum, and the Elementary region. Each are filled with 
Celestial Fire, and traversed by innumerable oceans of As- 



121 

tral Light, but the quantity and quality of these divine 
elements diminishes as these subdivisions of space recede 
farther from the Central Source of all. 

It is the union of the Celestial Fire and Astral Light 
which constitutes the Soul of the Universe. 

The Rosicrucian biographer proceeds to say : 

li There are three ascending Hierarchies of beneficieut Angels whose nature is of 
the purer portion of the Celestial Fire, and these are divided iuto nine orders. — 
These threefold Angelic Hierarchies are : — The Teraphim, the Cherubim, and 
Seraphim; also, there is a correspondential realm of darkness, divided iuto nine 
spheres — the residuum of being, peopled with mighty but adverse Angels, who 
boast still, of the relics of their lost or eclipsed condition, once all light and 

heavenly glory." "The Elementary region includes the earth, man, and 

his belongings, also the lower creatures. This sphere is the flux, subsidence, 
ashes, of the ethereal fire, and man himself is the microcosm or indescribably 
small copy of the macrocosm, or great world. This earth having been produced 
by the contention of light and darkness, has denseness in its innumerable heavy 
concomitants, which contain less and less of the original divine light and heat, 
and thicken and solidify, until it is rent apart, torn, disintegrated and distributed 
into forms, by the still prevalent action of the Divine element of invisible fire. 
The inner jewel of light is never absent, even from the grossest atom, and though 
it may take ages to evolve, still will this divine light, ever tendmg to purify, 
refine, and elevate, alchemically convert base things into fine, gross matter into 
ethereal, and the earth itself into a radiant and gloriously spiritualized planet. 
Unseen and unsuspected, there is a divine ethereal spirit, an eager fire, confined 
as in a prison, struggling through all solid objects, which are imbued with more 
or less of this sensitive life, as they are more or less refined, through the changing 
purgations of fire. Thus all minerals in this spark of light have the rudimentar3^ 
possibility of plants, and growing organisms; plants have rndimeutary. sensibili- 
ties, which might in distant ages transmute them into locomotive creatures, and 
all vegetation might pass ofi", into new and independent highways of being, as 
their original spark of life-light, thrills, expands, and urges nature forward with 
more informed force, and directed by the unseen Angelic Ministers of the Great 

Original Architect." " It is with terrestrial fire that the Alchemist breaks 

asunder the atomic thickness of visible nature, which; yielding up its secret 
destiny, of unlimited progress, sinks into the fiery furnace, in its basest propor- 
tions, to arise thrice purified, and forced upwards on the pathway of a higher round 
of the ladder. 

" It is with the celestial fire that the Rosicrucian bursts asunder the bonds of 
error and darkness that hold the soul in a material prison-house. He becomes the 
Pontifex (bridge maker), which conducts the Soul across the dark waters of 
ignorance from the realms of the known to the unknown, from the gates of matter 
to the bright roads of Spirit ;— from earthly blackness to celestial light, from the 
visible fires of purgation to the invisible soul light of eternity." 

Our readers may pardon us for interblending so many 



122 

fragQients of Rosicrucian musings with the practicalities 
which we profess to aim at, but to the genuine student of 
the occult sciences, it may not be uninteresting to learn 
something of the real opinions of a sect to whom so much 
that is false and mythical has been attributed. As God is 
the solvent for all the problems of pious ignorance, so elec- 
tricity plays the same part in the realm of unexplained 
phenomena. The name of the Rosicrucians seems to have 
been borrowed in the same sense, and applied by supersti- 
tious and utterly uninformed babblers to cover up all the 
occult mysteries which science could not explain, and big- 
otry feared to tamper with. 

It is something to know ourselves — not less to be truly 
known by others. 

We do not press these fragments of Rosicrucianism on 
the reader's attention for the mere purpose of citing ab- 
stract opinions with which we have especial sympathy, 
but we feel that, to the interior sense of the profound 
thinker, they have a deeper significance than any other 
theories that have yet been advanced concerning the won- 
derful phenomena of Deity, life and being. Allowing for 
the varied modes of expression which prevail in different 
countries, and at various epochs of time, these opinions 
present a very fair, though necessarily condensed abstract, 
of the philosophies of the Cabbalists, Gnostics, Pythago- 
reans, Platonists, and many of the most enlightened of the 
Greeks, Romans and earl}^ Christians. 

In giving a brief and practical summary of these theo- 
ries, we find that, whilst the soul or innermost of the man 
is a Divine emanation from Deity, the body or outermost 
is an aggregation of material atoms, vitalized by the Astral 
Spirit, which serves as the life principle to the body, the 
ethereal body of the soul, and forms the connecting link 
between the soul and body. This Astral Spirit accompa- 



123 

nies the soul at Death, when the union of the two forms 
the spirit. The more sublimated portions of this Astral 
body adhere to the soul, the grosser and coarser layers 
form the outer covering or body of the spirit. 

It is in this luminous Astral Spirit, this concentration 
of all force, life, heat, motion and imponderable essence, 
this invisible, " supernatural fire," as the ancient Theoso- 
phists termed it, that the power resides to make spirits 
visible to mortal eyes, to exhale force, so that they can 
lift bodies, make sounds, and produce all the manifesta- 
tions by which spirits and mortals commune with each 
other. The heat generated in this Astral Spirit gives life 
and motion to the body ; the light, which is its substance, 
colors the various tissues and fluids, and causes them to 
reflect the grosser rays of light in the atmosphere, so that 
they can become visible. 

Once more we will suggest, that the Astral Spirit in the 
human structure is analogous, though differing in degrees 
ol attenuation and force, to the Astral light in the realms of 
space. — It is the spiritual principle of the earth, galvanism, 
magnetism, motion throughout its rocks, plants, minerals, 
waters, and gases. 

It is the restless, ethereal fire that forces asunder the 
most mobile particles of fluid, and disperses them into gases ; 
— it separates the still finer particles of gases, and dis- 
tributes matter into ether. — It is not, as some have asserted, 
ether per se^ but it is the principle of motion which rolls 
oceans of ether into undulatory waves, and causes it to be- 
come the carrier of light and heat. — When its swift winged 
rays encounter opposite currents, when moving with in- 
conceivable energy through one body it meets with its 
counterpart in opposing motion, the fierce concussion re- 
sults in combustion ; this mighty shock eliminates flame 
or lightning, and in the all-devouring action of the mate- 



124 

rial fire, the surrounding particles are consumed. Destruc- 
tion by fire, or what is called electricity then, is the 
material exhibition of two contending bodies, moving in 
opposite directions under the energetic action of the spirit- 
ual fire. — In its primal condition, the Astral light of the 
Universe is like that of the Spiritual body in man, invisi- 
ble, latent, inscrutable, unknown, except by its effects in life, 
warmth, and motion. In its external and last analysis, it 
is the consuming fire, and its action is to reduce all things 
back again into their own invisible esserice ; thus is it the 
Alpha and Omega of being, the first and the last ; Deity. 

The Astral Spirit in man is not a single original element, 
like the Soul, it is a combination of all the imponderables 
of the Universe. Its first derivation or original essence is 
from the Sun and planetary system. Ether, air, atmos- 
phere, earth, with all its fi-eight of organic and inorganic 
life, combine to send off emanations which make up the 
sum of the wonderful structure called the Astral Spirit in 
man. It is a true cosmos of the Universe, and upon its 
exterior form is engraved all the sand grains of character, 
motives, powers, functions, vices, virtues, hopes, and mem- 
ories, which the Soul has gathered up in its process of 
growth through the material body ; hence it is as much a 
perfect microcosm of the individual's mind within, as of 
the visible and invisible Universe without. Not a deed, 
word, or thought which has helped to make up the sum of 
a human life, but what is photographed upon the spiritual 
body ol the man, with as much fidelity as the mind of the 
Creator is written, in starry hieroglyphics upon the glit- 
tering skies. It keeps as faithful a record, as true a dooms- 
day book, and pronounces as sure a judgment upon human 
life and conduct as ever the Egyptian Osiris could have 
done, in his sternest moods of God-like justice. 

Its many layers of graduated ethereal essence are felt by 



125 

Sensitives as rings, or spheres. Those nearest the body 
are perceived as life spheres, and these change with the 
body's changes, and in its decay and death, recede, and 
become the outermost of the new born Soul's envelope. 
Those most interior to the body, and nearest the Soul, are 
the Sun spheres, and connect the Soul with the Solar and 
Astral influences, under which the individual was launched 
into being. 

These interior spheres too, change in reponse to Solar 
and planetary changes, and thence they affect the mind, 
influence the character, and constitute the links of con- 
nection by which the stars act upon* the individual' s des- 
tiny. As man's Astral Spirit is aggregated from so many 
forces in the Universe, so it is subject to the influence of 
changes occurring in every department of Nature. 

The state of the earth, atmosphere, and aromal emana- 
tions given off in different seasons of the year — all these, 
with their changing influences, contribute to form the 
essence of the embryonic being ere it sees the light. The 
inherited tendencies of mind, body and spirit imposed by 
parental law, impart to the life germs their own peculiar 
idiosyncrasies. The physical sustenance, mental tempera- 
ment, the very employments and thoughts of every moth- 
er, combine, also, to impress, with fateful images, their 
unborn offspring ; but above all, the order of the plane- 
tary scheme, and the conjunction which every star sustains, 
first to the Sun, next to the earth, and finally to each other 
at the moment of mortal birth, must determine the nature 
of every spirit, and shape the springs upon which hinge the 
framework of human character. 

Admitting then, the Soul's origin in Deity, and the 
Astral spirit's origin in the solar system, how vastly mo- 
mentous upon the newly-born being's character and or- 
ganization must be the solar and planetary influences which 



126 

prevail in the hour of the germ's inception, through every 
stage of embryonic life, and at the very moment when, 
drawn by solar and planetari/ influence from the darhiess of 
its emhrijonic prison^ it is launched in space as a living crea- 
ture ! 

Ages ago, the ancient astronomer discovered that all the 
V a s crystal vault of the skies, the illimitable fields of 
space dotted over with millions of fiery blossoms, seem- 
ingly so fixed, so calm, so immobile in their solemn silence 
and mysterious beauty, were all moving, ! Moving on in 
constant but still ever-changing orbits. The certainty of 
these stupendous chaijges was absolutely determined by 
the discovery of that remarkable motion called " the pre- 
cession of the equinoxes," a motion which, in a given period 
of time, varying between two and three thousand years, 
swept the blazing sun of the solar system, with all its plan- 
etary hosts, from one sign of the Zodiac to another. Later 
on — in fact, up to our own time — astronomical observa- 
tions have determined that all the stars of the sidereal 
heavens, gorgeous fields of space, filled with the march of 
suns and systems, speed on with a momentum so tremen- 
dous, that the mind of man shrinks back, awe-struck, at 
the attempt to trace, those footprints of fire through spaces, 
wherein millions of miles are measured by hours and min- 
utes. Whilst the external aspect of these spangled heav- 
ens changes but little to the eye of the observer during 
many centuries of time, the real permanence of the scheme 
is only apparent. " Only constant in eternal unrest," 
might be traced in every glittering point of the sidereal 
heavens. Ever the same in the fixidity of matchless order, 
ever changing in the spiral circles of ascending progress. 
If this be so, as Science proves it is, how inevitably must 
the endless changes of the Macrocosm affect the nature of 
the Microcosm, and man, the world in little, partake of the 



127 . 

infinite variousness which discourses so eloquently through 
the epic of the starry skies ! 

There cannot be two planetary conjunctions in the field 
of space which, in all respects, exactly duplicate each 
other ; and this is the reason why those creatures, launched 
every second into human life, under the influence of ever- 
varying astral changes, must differ so widely from each 
other in all the essentials of physical, mental, intellectual 
and spiritual states. As the planets seem to return to 
stated points, and re-enact their mystic conjunctions in 
the shining pathway of the Zodiac, so there seem to be 
recurrences of certain types of character, and duplicates 
of certain facial lineaments. 

Viewing the valley of the then from the mountain heights 
of the now^ we are fain to give up this stereotyped opinion, 
and own that history only repeats itself in generalities, 
not in particulars, and that there is not a wave which 
beats on the shores of earth that ever returns with just 
the same force as those that have gone before — no, 
never ! And all this change in the planetary order is 
effected by the unceasing energy of the life that is throb- 
bing, and burning, and blazing on in its mad career of 
eternal unrest, in the midst of every starry road, and thril- 
ling down, and pulsating through the very central heart of 
every starry world ; and all this ceaseless movement, heard 
in the echoing feet of the tramping ages, is due to that 
same life spirit, burning up, shrivelling into ashes, and scat- 
tering into dust the forms of the past, in order that their 
liberated spirits may become incarnate in the fresher, fairer 
forms of the ages that are to be ! 

The consideration of these diffusive generalities are not 
irrelevant to our subject ; on the contrary, they need to be 
thought out and appreciated ere the unaccustomed thinker 
can apprehend why the motions of a single point of fire. 



128 

gleaming through the immensity of space, can affect the 
character and destiny of an individual removed from its 
orbit by incalculable sums of distance ; why all nature, 
animate and inanimate, moves, acts and speaks with an 
universal chord of sympathy connecting the whole ; why 
flights of birds, wheeling high in air, the motions of a 
dancing butterfly, a quivering sunbeam, a crawling worm, 
humming insect, or even the falling of a leaf, or the murmur 
of a wave, may discourse deep meanings in tlie ear of a 
true student of nature, and utter portents of immutable 
fate to illuminated scholars who have learned to interpret 
all the undertones of creation, and spell out its hieroglyphi- 
cal inscriptions. 

When we hear how Chaldean Soothsayers perceived the 
destinies of nations, in the smoking ashes of the burnt- 
oflfering ; how Roman Augurs interpreted the issues of life 
and death from the flight of birds ; how Persian Magi read 
the words of fate inscribed on the starry pages of the 
skies ; or Hebrew Priests discovered mystic meanings in 
the glittering lustre of Urim and Thummin ; we know 
that these men were simply natural philosophers, and had 
studied the occult side of nature with as much under- 
standing, and perhaps more devotion, than the nineteenth 
century Scientists accord to the mastery of the known and 
the visible. 

For thousands, perhaps for tens of thousands of years, 
it was the office of the best and wisest men of every suc- 
ceeding generation, to devote a lifetime to the study of 
nature, and that in her profoundest depths, and through 
all the mazes and windings of her supernatural relations 
with the visible and invisible spheres of being around her. 
^ Ever let it be remembered too, that the ancient philosopher 
brought to this sublime study a body as thoroughly pre- 
pared as a mind; a physique fitted b}^ temperance, chas- 



129 

tity and purity to allow full sway to the mind which in- 
habited it, and is so often cramped by inharmonious physi- 
cal states. 

When we come to lay down the conditions under which 
alone magical rites can become effective, and describe the 
life-long discipline which the powerful Magian must pur- 
sue, in order to become one, we shall put to shame the 
self-indulgent, intemperate, and too often dissolute habits 
of the present age^ — habits which not even the sacred as- 
sumption of the Priestly office seems always to impose re- 
straint upon. And yet this same self-indulgent and luxu- 
riant age, looks back with contempt on the asceticism of 
the ancient Priest, whilst those who profess to believe in all 
the miraculous records of Jewish history, treat those of 
every other nation of antiquity with scornful denial. As 
to Magic, why as something which can be taught^ '' it may 
be true," and perhaps even become a fashionable amuse- 
ment, provided always that book-learning, and a super- 
ficial digest of the opinions of others, can point out the 
roj^al road to power, and convert tinsel drawing-rooms into 
the halls of Walhalla, wine and cigars into the Alembic 
of Alfarabi, gilded mirrors into the divining crystal of 
Dee, and extrait de bouquet into the elixir vitce of St. Ger- 
main. A few pages of Cornelius Agrippa, which no mod- 
ern " Exquisite " would take the trouble to translate him- 
self, ought, in modern estimation, to be quite sufficient to 
make a magician^ and teach fine ladies to summon Sylphs 
and Undines for the amusement of an idle hour, just as a 
few figments of Latin, an essay done into bad Greek, and 
worse Hebrew, by a professional college drudge, for the 
benefit of his rich paying patron, is sufficient passport to 
those holy orders of our modern Priesthood in which God, 
Angels, Spirits, the immortal soul's origin, destiny, and 
powers, together with all the glories, marvels and mys- 



130 

teries of the boundless and eternal Universe, are the themes 
which demand interpretation. 

The most superficial retrospect of the lives, education 
and preparatory methods of discipline enforced upon the 
ancient Priesthood, invest that body with the true dignity 
of men in " holy orders ;" but how do these compare with 
the careless, lax system of mere book-learning, which in 
our own time is deemed all-sufficient to grind out a Priest^ 
the man who, of all others, should be bound by his sacred 
office to interpret the mysteries of being, nay, who should 
be deemed unworthy of that office, so long as mysteries 
remain unsolved. 

Nature has no secrets from her true votaries. She 
sternly veils spiritual entities from the rude gaze of mate- 
rialism, and refuses to render up any knowledge beyond 
the plane from which the inquiry originates. The Chemist, 
Geologist, Astronomer, and other disciples of the natural 
sciences, coldly set to work to examine Nature through her 
known formulae of physical laws ; aught that transcends 
these they will none of, hence the occult side of Nature is 
an unexplored realm to them, and yet they are prompt 
enough to acknowledge that that occult side exists, though 
their sneer is loud and long against those who claim to 
have mastered its mysteries. 

It is because the experience of past ages, conducted 
through thousands of years of study, by aid of carefully 
prepared conditions, has been devoted to the occult in 
Nature, that the ancients transcend the moderns in this 
respect, as much as modern science, in the direction of 
utilitarianism, transcends the colossal but cumbrous gran- 
deur of antique civilization. There lives not now upon 
the face of the earth, one human being, save perchance, a 
solitary adept of the old order, or ,a very pure and highly 
endowed spirit medium, who, in respect to the understand- 
ing of true Theosophy, Theurgy, and every department of 



131 



spiritual science, is fit to hold the office of Priest to the 
people, or instruct humanity in those grand truths which lie 
beyond the ken of physical science. It is to show the 
results of opinions which arose from countless ages of re- 
search into occult truths, that this section has been written. 
It is to present to the candid and bold thinker, the fruits 
of that knowledge which was gathered in through the dis- 
cipline of asceticism, fasting, and prayer, and the study of 
the whole Universe, not less in the realm of soul and spirit, 
than in body and function, that we now write. Despise 
these treasures of mind, garnered up through thousands of 
years, if ye will, but it is thus alone that the Universe has 
ever yielded an answer to the soul's urgent questioning ; 
thus alone can man ever solve the mystery of his being, 
and that of his planet. 

To point the way, we have written ; to show the kernel 
of the mighty fruit of the tree of occult knowledge, will 
these pages be devoted. But he who would eat of that 
fruit understandingly, must first plant the tree with his 
own hands, tend and culture it with a philosopher's pa- 
tience, and then, and then alone, will it yield to his taste 
the true knowledge of good and evil, then only will he eat 
for himself, and not through the senses of another. 

We shall conclude this section by another brief excerpt 
from the pages of the author whose definitions of Rosicru- 
cianism we have given above : 

■' Is it reasonable to conclade, at a period wlien lurowledge was at tlie highest; 
and when human powers were, in comparison with ours at the present time, pro- 
digious, that all these indomitable physical efforts — such gigantic achievements as 
those of the Egyptians, were devoted to a mistake? That the myriads of the 
iSTile were fools, laboring in the dark, and that all the magic of their great men 
was forgery f or that we, in despising that which we call their superstitious and 
wasted power, are alone the wise? JSTot so. There is much more in these old re- 
ligions than in the audacity of modern denial, in the confidence of these super- 
ficial science times, and in the derision of these days without faith, we can in the 
least degree suppose. 

•'We do not understand ; theu why sliould we venture to deride these ancient 
times?" 



132 



SECTION IX. 

Ancient Priests am] Proioliets — Spiritnal Gifts — Woman 
as Priestess and S?/I)i7 — Classification of S2?W'ituaUy 
encloioecl persons — Magnetizers, Mediums^ tlieir spe- 
cialties^ and the power of tlie Imman Sjnrit — SuniTnary. 

The chief duties of the ancient Priesthood were first, 
to find out the points of contact or unity between man 
and higher existences than himself; next, to discover the 
laws of man's being, and teach him to adjust his actions to 
the will of those higher existences ; and finally, to invoke 
or solicit their aid for man in the performance of his earth- 
ly mission. These vjere the duties of the ancient Priest, 
and should be no less obligatory upon officials of the same 
order to-day, but whilst we see some attempt in the external 
rites of ecclesiasticism to perform the third part of these 
priestly offices, we look in vain to discover any religious 
body which faithfully emulates the ancient Priest in the 
performance of the two first named duties. 

It is enough for the historian to record that it has been 
done, and show that it was upon the performance of the 
solemn offices of spiritual ministry, that the structure of 
ancient Priesthood was upreared. 

Amongst the Hindoos, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians 
and Hebrews, frequent mention is made of the Prophets, 
as a class distinct from the Priesthood, although at times 
associated with it. When the Prophets did take part in 
temple services, they were esteemed the most honored of 
the Priestly order, and their dictum was received with un- 
questioning reverence as the voice of Deity. 

Some authoritative writers intiuiate that it was upon 



133 

the foundation of true prophetic gifts, that the Priesthood 
was instituted, and when it was found that Spiritual gifts 
belonged to special individuals — not to an ofhce or caste 
— artificial means were resorted to, to supply the deficiency 
of natural endowments. Nature was studied to find out 
occult means of inducing vision, trance, seership and pro- 
phecy. The Priests were carefully instructed in astrology, 
theurgic rites, and the occult virtues of drugs, minerals, 
plants, words and ceremonial observances, and hence arose 
the art of magic, an art practiced simply as a subsitutefor/ 
spiritual gifts. 

Amongst the Hebrews, the Prophets, as a class, acted 
independently of the Priesthood. They were often per- 
sons outside of the consecrated tribe of Levites, to whom 
the Priestly office was limited, when they were not only ex- 
cluded by their birth from temple service, but they fre- 
quently acted in opposition to the Priesthood, and included 
them in their bold and unsparing denunciations against the 
corruptions of the time. Nothing can be more aggressive 
than the diatribes of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, against 
the abominations sanctioned by a corrupt and idolatrous 
Priesthood. Isaiah particularizes even the ceremonials 
of the Jewish faith, such as the observance of new moons, 
Sabbaths, fasts, feasts, times and seasons, as " abomina- 
tions before the Lord," when they were practiced for impure 
or unholy purposes. 

The contrast between the bigotry and conservatism of 
the Jewish Priesthood, and the bold, high-toned morality 
of the Hebrew Prophets, is one of the most remarkable 
specialties of the books of the Old Testament, and speaks 
in most significant language of the universal faith in good 
works inculcated by true Spiritism, and the dependence 
upon magical rites of mere ceremonial religions. 

It will be observed that whilst several of the most re- 



134 

nowned of the Greek Philosophers, such as Orpheus, 
Thales, Solon, Pythagoras, Appolonius, and others, 
studied in Egypt, or claimed to have obtained their occult 
knowledge in that land, their biographies prove, that they 
were naturally endowed with the true prophetic afflatus 
before they graduated in Egyptian Magic, and this is a 
comment upon the difference between natural and acquired 
gifts, which we desire our readers to bear in mind. 

The Greeks must have fully recognized the superiority 
of natural over acquired gifts of the spirit, when they were 
so constant in selecting women to serve as the oracles 
between Gods and men. Women made famous the oracles 
of the Pythian Apollo, and the responses of Dodona. 
Women's special gifts, of inspiration, have transmitted the 
fame of the Sybils to all agjes, and made their name 
synonymous with spiritual gifts. Even amongst the con- 
servative Jews, whose contempt of women is one of the 
chief blots on their national credit, women were perforce 
admitted to certain prophetic offices in the Temple, and 
several ladies of rank amongst the Romans and Egyptian?-, 
including the daughter of the famous Egyptian Monarch, 
Sesostris, were renowned for their prophetic endowments, 

The elevation of woman to conditions of perfect equality 
with man, is now acknowledged to be the highest evidence 
of a true and rational civilization, but whether we are treat- 
ing of ancient or modern conservatism, God in nature has 
proved through the unbroken lines of history, that spirit- 
ual gifts are innate, intuitional, and feminine in quality, 
and belong to those more rare and precious attributes of 
being, which particularly distinguish the female sex. If 
Soul essence is unique, and matter is shaped and determined 
chiefly by the energy and quantity of the Astral Spirit, it 
is to that realm of being that we must look, in order to 
analyze the specialty that constitutes natural prophetic 



135 

endowments, or spiritual gifts, whether in the male or 
female sex. 

"^t the very outset of our inquiry, we find two special- 
ties of orii;anism which more commonly belong to the male 
than the female, the study of which is important to a clear 
understanding of our subject. The first of these represent- 
ative physiques, discloses an individual with a compact 
self-centred, well-knit frame, inclining to the nutritive in 
temperament, and the adipose in tissue. In manner these 
individuals are generally straightforward, somewhat au- 
thoritative, occasionally egotistic, and fond of display ; 
kind-hearted, benevolent, and especially attracted to sick 
persons^ 

They generally have a clear eye, direct glance, and 
sometimes a piercing expression withal. — With such pecu- 
liarities of temperament, the Astral fluid exists in excess, 
endowing the individual with good health, a vigorous 
frame, a moderately active mind, and a general tendency 
towards social life and material enjoyments. These per- 
sons are almost always what is popularly termed " good 
magnetizers," and the excess of Astral fluid which develops 
itself in the above described idiosyncrasies, ordinarily 
induces the wish to use their gift, and impels them to 
magnetize sick people. It was from this class, that the 
ancients selected their Therapeutic healers and the Priests 
who were employed in the magnetic healing rites of 
Temple service. The eye as the window of the Soul, and 
the hand as the prime conductor of the Astral fluid, are 
always well developed in these natural mesmerizers. 

Where the first is full, clear, and luminous, and the 
second soft and warm, the astral fluid is invariably of a 
healthful and vivifying character. 

Where the eye is piercing, brilliant, or distinguished by 
the long Oriental shape of the almond, and the hand is 



136 

damp and moist, or hard and dry, look to find a stronger 
mental than physical impression produced, but in all 
varieties of this type of man, the person may be esteemed 
as a good mesmerizer, and the more expansive the frontal 
region of the brain, the better will be the effects, and the 
more healthful the power produced. 

As the magnet or loadstone only yields up its potency 
to the direction of skill, so these magnetic structures 
require the action of well-informed mind, and concentrated 
will, to render them serviceable ; with- these mental attri- 
butes to guide their powers and direct the projection of the 
Astral fluid, they may become admirable healers of the 
sick, or skillful " biologists" over sensitive subjects. 

The second individuality to which we would introduce 
our reader, is a more concentrated and energetic type of 
the first, and one in whom the intellectual temperament 
prevails over the nutritive or social. 

In the type of man now under consideration, a vast 
amount of the Astral fluid circulates, but it clusters chiefly 
about the crowning portions of the cerebrum, elevating the 
cranial apex in a remarkable degree. The cerebrum and 
nervous system absorb the surplus of the Astral fluid, rath- 
er than the fibrous and muscular tissues. Such persons 
exhibit many varieties of form and feature ; but their speci- 
alty is a large and finely- developed head. Persons of this 
ty]je become fine psychologists, or in ancient phraseology, 
such are " Adepts, Master Spirits, or Priestly Hierophants." 
In both types described above, it is the abundance of the 
Astral spirit, infused by inheritance and planetary and 
solar influence during embryonic life, and at tKe period of 
birth, which determines their characteristics ; and it is the 
distribution of this Astral fluid, in the one, throughout the 
whole system, and in the other, in certain regions of the 
brain, which constitutes the difierence between the mere 



137 

magnetic healer and the psychologist. Neither of these 
individuals may technicaliy recognize the peculiarities 
with which they are endowed, but the one will always 
bring a powerful and soothing influence to the sick, and 
the other prove a controlling and masterful mind in what- 
ever spheres of life he may be placed. If these persons 
understand their soul's capacities, they will know that, 
by mustering the excess of Astral fluid, permeating their 
systems, to the dominion of the will, they can induce a self- 
magnetized condition, in which the body sleeps, and the 
soul goes forth and traverses space, as in the phenomenon 
of somnambulism, natural clairvoyance, or in the exit of 
the spirit from the body when it is seen and termed the 
" Double," or " Wraith." They can induce these powers in 
others by magnetic and psychologic contact, and it only 
needs self-knowledge and the exertion of strong and con- 
centrated will to call them into exercise. 

There are no phenomena produced by disembodied 
spirits, which may not be effected by the still embodied 
human spirit, provided a correct knowledge of these 
powers is directed by a strong and powerful will. The 
conditions will be described in our sections on Art Magic, 
but the potency of the will can never be too strongly in- 
sisted upon in all spiritualistic operations. In the physique 
above described as No. 1, the excess of the Astral fluid 
generally clusters around the epigastric and cardiac regions, 
rendering the person thus endowed highly powerful in 
physical magnetization and healing operations, but, as be- 
fore hinted, the cerebral development is rarely proportion- 
ably marked, and the best of physical magnetizers are not 
the giants of intellect and psychological control. '^ 

The reverse of this position obtains in the organisms 
classed as No. 2. In them, the Astral fluid inheres more 
closely to the soul than the body ; exalts the top of the 



138 

cranium nitlier than the front ; compels a preclommance 
of the organs of command and ideality ; projects its sphere 
of indomitable influence on all around, and unfolds the in- 
tellectual faculties into singular prominence, in whatever 
direction the}^ exist, rendering the individual remarkable 
as a Statesman, General, Author, Priest, Physician, or, if 
devoted to the study, irresistible as an " Adept," Magician, 
and controller of mundane and sub-mundane spirits. Such 
individuals are generally as eager as they are capable of 
penetrating into nature's profoundest depths. 

We might rank the amiable and highly gifted Anton 
Mesmer as a type of the organism No. 1. and the noble 
Sages of Greece, Apollonius and Pythagoras, as shining 
illustrations of the type described as No. 2. 

Prophets, or Mediums, are persons in whom, from 
inherited causes and Astral influences prevailing at 
birth, an immense amount of the Astral fluid exists, but 
who, by the peculiar conformation of the tissues which 
make up their physical structures, are too ready to part 
with their superabundant life principle. In the types of 
organism already described as good magnetizers and pow- 
erful psychologists, the Astral fluid is concentrated, the 
tissues of the body firm and compact, and the efflux of 
magnetic power is due only to its superabundance. The 
medium with the same excess of magnetic force, is totally 
lacking in the concentration and solidarity which distin- 
guishes the other class. The one in physique as in charac- 
ter, is wholly positive ; the other purely negative. The one 
the operator, the other the subject. The physical structure 
of the two may present little or no external signs of differ- 
ence to those who do not study physiological types, rather 
than surface varieties, but the arrangement of the mole- 
cules in the two organisms, are structurally dissimilar, 
and this dissimilarity exhibits itself thus : 



139 

The magnetizer imparts strength fro!n the abundance 
of his strength. The medium exhales the life principle to 
depletion, and, in the loss sustained, insensibly draws upon 
the ibrces of others. The medium is emphaticallj' a 
" Sensitive." Every nerve is laid bare, every pore is a 
conductor of the too rapidly ebbing life fluid. When the 
brain is small, and the generating power of this life fluid 
is weak (the brain being its source), the intellectual facul- 
ties are limited and dull ; the mind, incapable of drawing 
from the brain, becomes inactive, and the nature is stolid 
and unimpassioned. It is from such types as these that 
the superficial remark has arisen, that media should be, or 
always are, " Yerj passive," unintellectual persons. These, 
however, are only one type of the class. A great many 
persons, highly charged with the Astral fluid, and losing 
it in such rapid streams as to constitute them good mediums, 
are in consequence exceedingly sensitive, restlessly ner- 
vous, and susceptible to every influence they come in con- 
tact with. The life principle flows off all too rapidly 
through their tissues, leaving them irritable, weak and 
despoiled. 

As nature abhors a vacuum, these organisms necessarily 
attract the Astral spirits of all things and persons around 
them, hence others in their presence often experience a 
sensible diminution of strength, whilst the media them- 
selves are frequently affected painfully or pleasurably bv 
the mere approach of certain individuals, realizing also the 
special influences which attach to scenes, places, houses 
and garments, which would produce no effect upon less 
susceptible persons. It is this extreme susceptiblity and 
the negative condition produced by the loss of Astral fluid, 
which renders such persons fine instruments for the control 
of spirits. 

These beings ^ clothed with the same Astral element 



140 

which forms the spiritual bod}^ of mortals, readily effect a 
rapport with the class of organisms we have described. 
This rapport, however, most generally transpires between 
the spirits who are in the nearest proximity to earth. 

It must be remembered that the atmosphere is as full of 
spiritual life, as the water is of animalculse. The Astral 
fluid — the element in which spirits live, and of which their 
external bodies are composed, permeates this atmosphere, 
like oceans of light, hence spiritual life is to this planet, 
what the Soul is to the body, only that the strata of spirit- 
ual life nearest the earth are graduated from the spirits of 
those who are most in rapport with earth, to elementary 
beings, who in reality constitute no inconsiderable portion 
of the earth itself, hence it is, that mediumistic persons — 
susceptible to the influences of varied life that swarms 
around them — are often moved by nameless and incompre- 
hensible monitions of danger, the presence of evil, or the 
tendency to actions from which their own better natures 
and judgment would revolt. 

The chief points of diflerence between the ancient Pro- 
phet, the Mediseval Witch, and the modern Medium, con- 
sist in the aims and influences which severall}^ actuated 
them, and inspired the spirits that surrounded them. The 
prophetic men and women of old were intensely religious 
persons. They lived in devotional ages too, when their 
exceptional gifts marked them out for a species of rever- 
ence which almost amounted to worship. Separated from 
their fellow men by the peculiar sanctity attached to the 
prophetic character, their religious aspirations, and the 
asceticism of their lives, attracted to them beings of a far 
higher order than those whom we now invoke in the com- 
munion with family spirits and kindred ties. 

Most of the ancient Prophets, Seers, and Sybils, prepared 
for the communion with higher intelligences than earth, by 



Ml 

methods to be hereafter described, hence their powers were \ 
more concentrated, and phenomenally greater than those 
of the work-a-day trading media of the present time. 

As to the Spiritism of the mediaeval ages, unless it ex- 
isted in the persons of learned mystics, who cultured it 
after the ancient fashion, or it fell as a mantle of inspira- 
tion on poets, pointers, musicians, inventors, religious re- 
formers, etc., it degenerated into ugly and often injurious 
obsession, by ignorant spirits, attracted to media of a char- \ 
acter kindred with themselves. Thus the study of differ- 
ent phases of spiritual influx, proves, how much its repre- 
sentation is determined by the age, spirit of the time, and 
character of the communicating intelligences. 

Europe and America are at present in the heyday flush 
of materialistic civilization. 

Utilitarianism is the genius of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. If religion could be put to some practical use, or 
reduced to a scientific analysis, it would be as much the 
fashion now as it was five thousand years ago ; but what- 
ever comes in the shape of religious belief, even scientific 
discoveries concerning the occult side of nature, must con- 
form to the materialistic and utilitarian spirit of the age, 
or the age will none of it. Such is the crucible of human 
opinion through which the Spiritism of this century has to 
pass, and hence mediumship is a trade, an amusement, or 
a curiosity ; Spiritism, a marketable commodit}^, or a fash-. 
ionable mode of beguiling an idle hour. As inspiration ^ 
invariably descends from the same plane to which aspira- 
tion ascends, spirit answers spn^it from correspondential 
realms of thought and intelligence. 

As it is helow^ so is it above ; in the skies as on the earth. 

Having briefly depicted the general characteristics of 
those through whom spirits communicate, we shall proceed 
to classify the groups into which prophetic or mediumistic 
gifts resolve themselves. 



142 

Premising that each mediumistic person is so by inherit- 
ance, or the awakening of hitent bat still functional pow- 
ers, and that we are not now treating of that magic which 
compensates by art for the lack of natural endowments, 
we shall render such definitions of our subject, as practi- 
cal experience suggests. 

The Trance state ranges from that of Ecstasy, in which 
visions of the highest and most transcendental nature are 
revealed, through all the various stages of Somnambulism, 
to that semi-conscious sleep- waking condition, in which the 
ego is not lost, but wherein the origin of the thought, 
whether from the subject's own mind, or the impression 
of another's, is not clearly discerned. 

Inspiration is the addition of higher mentality to that 
of the subject's own individuality. It does not necessitate 
any abnegation of self-consciousness ; it only stimulates 
that consciousness to extraordinary exaltation. 

In all these states the inj9.uence of spirits is more than 
likely to be the superinducing cause. That influence is 
exerted in precisely the same fashion as the simply hu- 
man processes of- electro-biology, and by operators, who 
have either practiced this method of control on earth, or 
been endowed with the power by nature to do so. The 
spirit projects his Astral spirit in the fashion of the earthly 
magnetizer upon his mediumistic subject ; by this fluid the 
system becomes charged and the magnetic sleep, semi-con- 
conscious trance, or the exaltation of inspiration is induced. . 

These graduated conditions represent the amount of 
passivity or mental activit}^ of the subject — total uncon- 
sciousness usually falling upon a very receptive and passive 
mind, and inspiration stimulating rather than subduing the 
powers of an already highly unfolded intellect./ When 
the system is sufficiently saturated with the spiritual mag- 
netizer's Astral fluid, as to be subject to control, the o|)er- 



143 

ator, b}^ strong will, infuses his thought into the subject's 
mind ; but whatever the specialty of thought may be, 
it becomes shaped, tinctured, and not unfrequently marred 
to a greater or less degree by the idiosyncrasies of the 
medium's habits of speech, and methods of expression. 
There must always be an adaptation between the subject 
on earth, and the operator of the spheres. A spirit of a 
totally foreign and unsympathetic nature to the medium 
could not obtain control, except in the case of obsession, 
and that transpires through the brutal and resistless power 
of a. gross, strong, earth-bound spirit, acting upon a gen- 
erally frail, susceptible and most probably sickly organism. 

In the ordinary exercise of spirit control, the spirit 
acting as a good magnetizer, chooses a well-adapted subject, 
whose mind and physique are calculated to assimilate with 
his own, and thus presents his ideas through the aid of a 
borrowed vehicle of thought. This mode of influence cor- 
responds in many respects to the vaticinations of the Sybils 
and Prophetesses of old, only that the utterance of the 
Spirits termed Gods, or Demons, commonly took place in 
bodies which had previously been prepared, by fastings, 
ablutions, and sometimes by the inhalations of vapors, which 
subdued the senses, stimulated them to '^ mantic frenzy," 
or prepared the system for the infusion of a superior con- 
sciousness to their own. 

These modes of control by spirits, speaking through the 
lips of entranced or inspired media, are not limited in their 
effects to the exhibition of merely curious mental trans- 
formatiims. In ancient, as in modern times, these oracular 
utterances have been productive of a far wider range of 
good and revolutionary thought, than is dreamed of by 
those who listen, go hence, and deem they have simply 
been interested for the moment, and will certainly forget 
the ideas they have heard. 



144 

The Sold never forgets. The over-laden hrain of humanity 
retains the impression of every image presented to it. As 
each fresh succession of images photographs itself on the 
mind's tablets, the last seem to crowd out and efface the 
impress of the earlier ones. They vanish from sight truly, 
but they are still there, and there they remain forever. 
Unconsciously to their possessors, they enter into every 
phase of character. They linger like a subtle perfume 
in the sphere of uncouscioiis cerebration, pervade the sen- 
timents, enter into the mental structure, shape the motives, 
externalize themselves in words which linger in others' 
ears, in deeds which affect others' destinies, and silently 
interweave themselves into invisible, but indestructible 
images, reflected upon the Astral light of the Universe. — 
Could this most subtle, but most potential realm of being- 
be thoroughly explored, all the thoughts, words, and deeds, 
that have ever moved the race would be found in ineffaceable 
pictures engraved upon the billows of Astral light that 
heave and swell through the oceans of infinity. Nothing- 
is lost in nature, nothing blotted out in eternity, and 
fature generations, living, moving, and breathing in the 
Astral realms of life imprinted with the Soul images of 
vanished ages, inhale them, grow in them, re-combine them 
into the elements of their own characters, and thus live 
over again, in ever rolling, but ever ascending cycles of 
time, every sand-grain of ideality that has ever been 
launched into space. Hence too, the universality of ideas ; 
the spontaneous affection of two kindred minds unknown 
to each other, and removed apart by long intervals of 
distance, and yet how often are such at the same moment 
of time inspired by the same thought, moved to execute 
the same woj-k, and even construct the same, yet apparently 
original piece of mechanism ; write the same stanzas of 
poetry, or arrange the same strains ol' melodj^ into dupli- 



145 

cate forms ! This is the source of thought epidemics, v 
mental contagions, and infectious opinions. 

""The gross atmosphere of earth traversed by the seas of 
Astral light cannot but become charged with the images 
they bear, and wherever two waves of this Astral fluid 
unite to form an idea, some receptive mind seizes upon it. 
The wave flows on, the idea strikes another, and yet an- 
other mind, until the force of one leading thought sweeps 
on its grand career of influence, from pole to pole, and 
traverses the mental girth of an age, although, perchance, 
none but the constructive genius of a few, can assimilate 
and utilize it. Trance mediums of the New Dispensation 
— Prophets of the Old ! Nothing is lost in Nature. Fear 
not for the results of thy labors ! Whatever is false or 
worthless will fade and perish — the beautiful and true 
never die ! 

The next class of media who represent the power of 
spirits to communicate with earth, are those impressed 
with artistic and intellectual ideas. They are moved to 
draw strange patterns, groups of flowers, portraits of de- 
ceased persons^ symbolical or emblematical pictures, to 
write messages, words of love, poems, often containing 
tokens of memory which identify the controlling power 
with some individual who once inhabited a mortal body. 
Music totally foreign to the medium's mind or capacity 
has been thus given ; foreign languges spoken and writ- 
ten by those unacquainted with them ; pantomimic repre- 
sentations have been made, depicting the peculiarities of 
some deceased friend ; and thus every sense is used, and 
every faculty brought into play, to prove the presence and 
influence of a world of being rising up like immortal blos- 
soms from the ashes of the vanished dead. 

Spirits making use of the Astral light which permeates 
all space, sometimes impress upon it visionary pictures of 



146 

lutuie events ; sometimes shadowy representations of their 
own forms, and always in such shape as will identify them 
with those who have been deemed dead, and laid away in 
the quiet grave. 

Spirits are full of ingenious resource, highly construct- 
ive, and far more widely informed upon the arcanum ol' 
nature than mortals, hence can produce a greater variety 
of effects, and in much shorter periods of time than we can 
conceive of, hence their methods of representation strike 
us as abnormal and magical. They are simply due to 
magnetization of the medium's spirit by the invisible opera- 
tor, and psychological impressions produced through will 
upon the medium's spiritual consciousness. 

The third order of media who specially distinguish 
themselves in the modern spiritual movement, are those 
through whom strong, powerful, earth-bound spirits (;an 
act upon material bodies, and cause them to become tele- 
graphic signs of their presence. 

The persons through whom these theurgic signals are 
made, for the most part absorb the Astral fluid which is 
their life, through the cerebellum, the epigastric nerves, 
and the great solar plexus. Though not necessarily deli- 
cient in cerebral development, they are rarely distinguished 
in this region, and, in some instances, the preponderance 
of nervous force in the ganglionic or sympathetic system 
is greatly in excess of the cerebro-spinal, thus stimulating 
the instinctive appetites, especially those which correspond 
to animal tendencies. 

This is not invariably the case, but it has and does char- 
acterize much mediumship of this order. It is also a sig- 
nificant fact, and one which should commend itself to the 
attention alike of the physiologist and psychologist, that 
persons afflicted with scrofula and glandular enlargements, 
often seem to supply the pabulum which enables spirits to 
produce ponderous manifestations of physical power. 



147 

Frail, delicate women — persons, too, whose natures are 
refined, innocent and pure, but whose glandular system 
has been attacked by the demon of Scrofula, have fre- 
quently been found susceptible of becoming the most 
remarkable instruments for physical demonstrations by 
spirits. In some instances mediums for this class of phe- 
nomena are persons in the enjoyment of rude health and 
vigorous constitutions. The author has witnessed mani- 
festations of the most astounding character eliminated 
through the mediumship of rugged country girls and stout 
men, especially the natives of Ireland and Northern Ger- 
many ; but a close and careful scrutiny of these remarkably 
endowed media, will often reveal a tendency to epilepsy, 
chorea and functional derangements of the pelvic appa- 
ratus, which proves that the cerebellum and ganglionic 
system of nerves are unduly charged, and that the magnet- 
ism of spirits of a similar temperament to their own may 
exaggerate these constitutional tendencies into excess and 
disease. It is a fact, which we may try to mask, or the 
acknowledgment of which we may indignantly protest 
against, yet it is a fact nevertheless, that the existence of 
remarkable medium powers, argues a want of balance in 
the system ; and whilst the theory of too rapid ebb of the 
life forces and their excess, and unequal distribution, renders 
physical and scientific causes for this structural inhar- 
rnony, it also proves what is the character of the pabulum 
which spirits use to produce the magnetic, psychologic and 
physical effects which are rendered through these unevenly 
balanced organisms. 

It has frequently been asked whether there is any phi- 
losophy to explain these aberrations of nature, to which we 
reply, assuredly there is. The Astral fluid becomes char- 
acterized by every material atom through which it passes. 
It is at once the cause and effect of all varieties in nature. 



148 

Its abundance, and the energy of its action, is determined 
by the qutmtity and quality of the atoms through which it 
flows ; but once incorporated in organic bodies as their 
attribute, its own quality becomes materially affected by 
the quality of the particles it vitalizes ; and here it is proper 
to recur to the opinion of many illuminated Seers, namely, 
that there are several layers, or strata, of these Astral 
currents, forming as a totality one spiritual body. Those 
nearest the Soul are the finest in quality, and represent 
the spheres related to the Solar and Astral system. 
Those layers on the outer surface of the spiritual body, 
most nearly inhering to the material atoms, form the life 
spheres, permeate the body, partake of its quality, deteri- 
orate or improve with it, are gross, coarse or dense, as the 
body's habits or mind's tendencies characterize it ; in a 
word, it is this portion of the Astral spirit, which streams 
forth from the medium in a flood of emanation, and hence 
becomes the exact gauge of the medium's physical and 
mental state. It is particles of this latter description which 
form the life principle of plants and minerals. 

It is these fiery elements of universal life force, which 
are struck out in radiant sparks from the hard^ flinty rock, 
or crystalline iron. Violent action will drive forth the lam- 
bent flames of life from every solid body, and cause them 
to quiver between the strokes of every concussion. They 
stream forth in odic lights from shells, crystals, magnets, 
and all magnetic bodies. They reach out their fingers of 
latent fiery force, to gather up kindred particles around 
the loadstone. They stream up in pencilled rays of many 
colored glory, painting over the northern skies with gor- 
geous illuminations in the wonderful Aurora Borealis. 
They form the electric paths in which rolling worlds, suns 
and systems are held in innumerable lines of Ibrce. They 
flash in the wild fires of contending cloud armies. They 



149 

discharge solemn peals of heavenly artillery in the roar of 
the battling tempest. 

They shout their anthems of power in the heaving bil- 
lows, and sob away the last echoes of sound in the murmur 
of the half slumbering waves. These invisible, latent, all- 
pervading flames of life, these direct emanations from the 
Central Sun of all being, connect suns and planets, earths 
and satellites, by the stupendous chains of force, and fill 
all space with oceans of invisible, but ever living fires. — 
They fill all creation with life, but take on the protean 
forms of every atom through which their living currents are 
forever ebbing and flowing. 

Then need we not marvel that the Astral fluid which 
flows through the refined particles of a pure and healthful 
human organism, might afford intellectual spirits an oppor- 
tunity of impressing the brain with high inspirational ideas, 
yet fail to give off that superabundance of quantity or 
denseness of quality, which is requisite to produce mani- 
festations of a ponderable character — on the other hand; 
remembering the almost infinite varieties of exhibition 
which the Astral fluid assumes in accordance with the 
variousness of the particles through which it flows, we need 
not feel surprised that a human body abundantly endowed 
with this same life fluid, so constituted as to eliminate it 
through every pore, but giving off a quality which is 
especially redolent of influences generated in the vital and 
nutritive system of nerves, should furnish that pabulum 
which enables spirits to construct forms, and produce man- 
ifestations of a purely physical character. 

In this scheme of natural order, disease must impress 
itself upon every imponderable particle of the Astral 
sphere, and since the body laboring under disease is really 
being disintegrated, and parts too rapidly and freely with 
its life principle, so do sick persons give off in the most 



150 

abundance, and of the most dense quality, the element 
which spirits can use for the production of strong physical 
manifestations. 

The same philosophy with certain modifications, applies 
to the mediumship of little children. 

Endowed with a superabundance of that vital force 
which is necessary for the purposes of growth, young chil- 
dren dispose of this excess in general by violent exercise, 
exercise which would exhaust more mature bodies, but 
which nature impresses them to undertake as a safety- 
valve, for the escape of the vital currents, with which their 
young fresh frames are charged to repletion. Unscrupu- 
lous spirits who perceive the powerful aromal essences 
which flow forth so freely from the young, take advantage 
of its existence, to produce manifestations of their presence, 
and thus it so often happens, that children, like sick per- 
sons, become potent media for spirits. It should be added 
that the practice of permitting children thus to be exercised 
as mediums, should only be indulged in to a very limited 
extent, the excessive draught procured from their tender 
and susceptible frames, rendering them liable to lose health, 
strength, and perhaps life itself, under its action. 

We do not now enlarge upon the good or evil results ol 
this kind of rapport between spirits and mortals, we simply 
write of its modes, and the means of ready access which 
spirits find for its performance. 

The physical force medium is often endowed with a 
great variety of gifts, because the Astral fluid, charging 
the whole body to excess, and flowing through every pore 
with a profuse expenditure of the life principle, constitutes 
all the organs mediums. The skin is charged, rendering 
it liable to be impressed with fleshly letters. The eye be- 
comes a ready conductor to the spiritual eye beneath ^ im- 
parting the faculty of clairvoyance. The entire of the 



151 

spiritual senses find ready expression through a physique 
which is all mediumistic, and a complete battery for the 
action of controlling spirits. Let it be remembered that 
in all magnetic operations every particle of the life fluid rep- 
resents the whole ; thus a sensitive by coming in contact 
with a lock of hair, a handkerchief, or the smallest piece 
of fabric touched by another, can psychometrically discover 
the entire of that other's nature. This alone would prove 
(were other facts wanting), that one particle of the subtle 
fluid of life represents the whole, and this can only be 
accounted for by acknowledging the truth of a curious 
hypothesis, presented to the world by a celebrated physi- 
ologist, who says : 

" Through the perspiratory ducts, and all the other methods by which nature 
supplies to the organism an apparatus for the dual functions of absorption and 
evaporation, the human body exhales the imponderable portions of blood, bone, 
nervous and muscular tissue, even the effete exhalations of hair and nails which 
go to make up the totality of the structure. 

"All these vaporized elements are in the atmosphere, carried by the gases, ex- 
haled from the lungs, and swept off from the photosphere of the human body, into 
the atmosphere that surrounds it. If we could arrive at any method of separating 
the organic from the inorganic particles that fill the air, and charge the atmosphere 
with living emanations, where human life abounds, we might crystallize them back 
again into human bodies, and hence the claim of the Spiritualists to have found 
in spiritual magnetism that crystallizing element by which they can re-clothe the 
spirit with a material body, gathered up from the atmosphere which surrounds a 
circle of investigators, is neither so wild or improbable after all." 

It would be a fact in spiritual phenomena, even if it were 
" wild and improbable " in hypothesis ; but to those who 
are acquainted with the nature of the Astral fluid — its iden- 
tity with the universal element we call force — its existence 
in man as a spiritual body, in the spirit's organism as an 
external body, and in the atmosphere as force per se ; it 
only needs an appreciation of the physiological idea above 
suggested, as to the character of our emanations, to under- 
stand why spirits, having at command a dense and power- 
ful stream of the Astral fluid exhaled from peculiar organ- 



152 

isms, can easily use that as a force for crystallizing the 
imponderable elements, which abomid in the atmosphere, 
into a temporary physical covering for themselves. 
X The medium's very flesh, and all the fluids and solids 
of his physique, are given ofl" by exhalations, and remain 
in the atmosphere. These exhalations from the ph3^sical 
medium are abundant in quantity, powerful and magnetic 
in quality, and so long as they can be extracted by. the 
magnetism of attendant spirits, and sustained by the com- 
bined magnetisms of other human beings, their crystaliza- 
tion by the aid of spiritual chemistry, can be readily 
eflected, and spirits can thus temporarily re-clothe them- 
selves in atoms of actual flesh and blood. They pass 
sparks of electricity through these imponderable exhala- 
tions, just as chemists can crystalize gases into fluids, and 
fluids into solids, by the same process. By aid of strong- 
will, and having all the elements held in solution in the 
atmosphere, spirits can even communicate objective solidity 
to the images in their minds, and thus present again the 
ponderable semblances of ornaments, clothes, and other 
physical fabrics ; nay more, by imparting to these tempo- 
rarily formed substances a sufficient amount of the Astral 
fluid to produce cohesion, they can be kept in being for a 
considerable time after the first formative process has been 
effected. 

There is no witchcraft or sorcery in these transforma- 
tions, although they may with propriety take rank as 
spiritual magic ; the Spirit is the Man ; the Soul the de- 
signer ; the Astral body the force, the mover, the motion, 
the executant. 

The material body is only a vehicle, enabling the Soul 
through the Astral body or spirit to come into contact with 
matter. In the above necessarily brief description of 
spiritual phenomena, we only touch on the results of com- 



153 

m union effected between spirits and mortals, where the 
former find conditions spontaneously prepared by nature 
for their use. We shall conclude this section by reviewing 
the possibilities which exist in every human being for pro- 
ducing extra-mundane effects through the application of 
natural laws to spiritual forces. 

The gifts of the spirit are spiritual sight — hearing, taste, 
smell and touch, wholly independent of the material ave- 
nues of sense. The power of projecting the Astral fluid 
from one individual to the body of another, through mag- 
netic manipulations, contact or will, and the power of im- 
pressing the will of one individual by the superior force of 
another. The soul also possesses the power of so concen- 
trating its own Astral spirit, as to temporarily subjugate 
the outer senses, steep them in forgetfulness, and then with- 
draw from the body, wander forth at will, preserve the 
body from death by leaving a sufficient portion of the 
Astral fluid to maintain its integrity, and subsequently re- 
turn to and resume its occupancy of the body. There are 
still other powers of the embodied human Soul of which 
we shall yet speak more in detail, suffice it for the present 
to sum up by saying the Soul cannot only perform all the 
phenomena now executed by the aid of disembodied spirits, 
but it can command the assistance of inferior grades to man^ 
and compel their aid in subjugating the forces of matter. 

Man can read the hidden things of another's mind, and 
even temporarily obsess it, and by aid of inferior spirits, 
psychologize many persons at once, compelling them to 
see, hear, taste or feel the subjective images of his creation. 

He can envelope some objects in the Astral fluid, render- 
ing them invisible to the material eye ; create disturbances 
in the atmosphere, or calm them by the same means ; 
promote rapid and spontaneous growth in the vegetable 
world ; wound the body and heal it in the same minute of 



154 

time ; render himself insensible to pain, fire and the effects 
of gravitation, and so float in mid-air ; cause himself to be 
buried alive during entrancement, and resume the func- 
tions of life when disinterred. 

All these things we positively affirm man can do, through 
the operation of his own will, and the aid of powerful 
spirits, and all these things the author positively affirms he 
has witnessed, and proposes in the forthcoming sections, 
to give the philosophy of, as gathered from personal expe- 
rience, and the descriptions of Fakeers, Yogees, Dervishes, 
Bramins, and the adepts of Oriental systems of magic. 

Whether our readers will observe the conditions neces- 
sary for the performance of these extra-mundane acts of 
spiritual power, is a question which we do not propose to 
decide upon ; but we commend our closing remarks to 
special consideration. 

The Soul is an emanation from Deity ; therefore Deific 
in power and attributes. The Astral spirit which clothes 
the Soul and vitalizes the body, is a part of the great mo- 
tor power of the Universe, the source and cause of all 
motion. 

The two combined, though temporarily shrouded in mat- 
ter, and limited by the encasements of a material body, 
still form a Deific, and therefore all-powerful existence, 
which only requires the light of spiritual science to render 
its functions as Deific as its source. Something of this is 
shown, when the soul is emancipated from the body, and 
returns to earth manifesting its astonishing and extended 
powers through what is called " spiritual phenomena." 

Other glimpses of these powers shine forth, through the 
lives of ecstatics, seers and magians ; but what illimitable 
possibilities yet remain unfathomed and undreamed of! 
\ Who can say where the terminal line is drawn between 



155 

\ 
God and His creatures, or why man should not manifest 

as a microcosm, all the creative attributes which belong to 

his Divine Author, the Macrocosm ] 

The superiority of ancient over modern Theosophy, does 
not arise from any retrogression in man or his planet. It 
is no arrest or backward step in the march of intellect ; 
but it results from the profound devotion with which the ;, 
ancient man regarded spiritual things, and the cold materi- ?' 
alism of the present day ; from the unceasing aspiration of I 
our forefathers towards spiritual light and knowledge, and \ 
the universal contempt or indifference with which such 
subjects are regarded now. 

The people of antiquity generally, and the priesthood in 
particular, studied into the laws of spiritual forces, and 
spent generation after generation in analyzing their prin- 
ciples, and the relations they bear to visible nature. 

Those thinkers of the nineteenth century, who strive to 
master the occult in nature at all, aim at doing so, by seek- 
ing for the spiritual through the laws of the material, and 
expect to push their way upward, from the known, to the 
unknown, from matter to spirit. 

Let those who would emulate the Divine plan, and work 
from the centre to the circumference, from Deity to His 
Creatures, and from Soul essence to created forms, despise 
not the results of human experience, and the strivings of 
the human mind for light and knowledge in any age, 
ancient or modern. Regarding the past as a stepping- 
stone to the present, and the lower chambers and galleries 
of the great Temple of humanity as the foundations upon 
which the integrity of the superstructure depends, let us 
with humble and reverent spirits avail ourselves of the 
successes and failures of our ancestors, as the warnings and 
encouragements by which our own steps may be safely 



156 

guided, and boldly push on in those transcendent paths of 
research, in which Angels are our guides, ministering 
spirits our strength, the elevation and culture of the Divine 
Spirit within us our goal, and God the Spirit, the quench- 
less beacon-light, by which our faltering footsteps will be 
ever illuminated, until we find our rest at last in Him. 



157 



SECTION X. 

Art Magic. 

General Summary of the condition and processes of Magical 

Practices. 

We adopt the caption of " Art Magic" for this Section, 
because we desire to draw the line between that vast 
amount of speculative philosophy, which is inextricably 
mixed up with ancient Theosophy, and the occult practices 
which constitute much of that Theosophy in application. 

Hitherto we have written chiefly of the theories by 
which the ancients explained the order of being, and the 
elements of life power and motion, by which being itself 
becomes operative. Until the principles thus laid down 
are thoroughly well digested, our attempts to show their 
application to the practices of magic will fail. 

With the most sincere desire to explain the modes by 
which artificial means can be induced to evoke the occult 
powers in nature, or in other words, to practice the art of 
magic, our efforts will be in vain, if the reader fails to 
apprehend what natare is ; to comprehend the structure of 
man in his threefold, character as a material, magical, and 
divine being ; to follow us in our definitions of the Astral 
fluid which vitalizles all things in nature, and the Astral 
spirit, which constitutes the spiritual body of man ; of the 
connecting links between Men^ Angels, Spirits, and Deity, 
and the difference between Prophets and Magicians, — the 
adept who commands spirits, and the medium who is com- 
manded by them. 

Without these preparatory steps for acquiring occult 



158 



knowledge, magic will remain magic in its lowest and 
most obscure sense, and Magic it will be to the end of the 
chapter. 

Magnetism and Psychology are the two pillars that sup- 
port the Temple of Spiritism. 

They are the Herculean columns through which the un- 
derstandmg leads the soul into supernal realms of power ; 
the " Jachiin and Boaz" by which the over-arching vault 
of the heavens is upheld, which canopies the Grand Lodge 
of Spiritual Masonry. 

r By magnetism the imponderable, all-pervading life ele- 
ment termed Astral fluid is communicated from one body 
to another. By psychology the power of one mind subju- 
gates and controls that of another, and it is in these two 
spheres of operation that all the marvels of magic trans- 
pire. The difficulties which oppose the scholar's mastery 
of this art, as practiced by the ancient and mediaeval phi- 
losophers, arise from a concatenation of causes, all combin- 
ing to darken knowledge rather than to promote it, and 
tending to obscure whatever light could be thrown upon 
the subject. 

In the first place the Priests of antiquity, who were the 
chief repositories of occult science, maintained their au- 
thority over the populace by reserving its understanding 
exclusively to their own order. It was not alone that they 
deemed such knowledge too high for vulgar minds, they 
felt that their own exclusive possession of its secrets was 
essential to the continuance of their authority, hence it 
would have been suicidal to entrust the multitude with 
that reserved force by virtue of which they held their 
office. 

It has often been alleged by modern writers that the 
ancient mysteries were the conservatories of all occult 
science, and that those alone who became Hierophants 



159 

therein, could arrive at a true understanding of Art Magic. 
It has lately become a received opinion too, that a study 
of the ancient Caballaho of the Hebrews and Orientals 
would supply this much desired information, and initiate 
any patient student of their pages into the arcanum of 
magic. Neither of these positions is correct. The mys- 
teries indoctrinated their initiates into those theorems of 
speculative philosophy of which our former sections have 
given brief summaries. 

The Caballaho have been perused and studied with the 
most unwearied care by many a learned scholar, who at 
the last has utterly failed to enact one single rite of magic 
successfully. 

Let the facts be plainly stated. In all the writings of 
true and highly endowed Mystics, whether ancient or 
mioderu, it is distinctly stated in the language of Cornelius 
Agrippa, that '■'■ a magician must be born so from his 
mother's womb," and that unless he is so gifted by nature, 
the processes by which real physiological changes are to 
be wrought in his system are slow, painful, and difficult of 
performance. 

We have written to little purpose if we have failed to 
impress upon our readers that the source of all spiritual 
powers and functions resides in that mysterious combina- 
tion of imponderable elements which we have termed the 
Astral spirit or spiritual body of man ; that it is to the 
original and constitutional structure of that Astral spirit, 
that prophetic or mediamistic endowments are due, and 
that when these exist inherently in the organism, man is 
a prophet, a medium, and can readily exalt his powers into 
those of a magician. The reader may inquire wherein 
consists the difference between a medium and a magician'^ 
We answer, chiefly in degree. The medium is one through 
whose Astral spirit, other spirits can manifest, making 
their presence known by various kinds of phenomena. 



160 

Wliatever these consist in, the medium is only a passive 
agent in their hands. He can neither command their pres- 
ence, nor will their absence ; — can never compel the per- 
formance of any special act, nor direct its nature. The 
magician on the contrary, can summon and dismiss spirits 
at will ; can perform many feats of occult power through 
his own spirit ; can compel the presence and assistance of 
spirits of lower grades of being than himself, and effect trans- 
formations in the realm of nature upon animate and inani- 
mate bodies. He can control his fellow-men physically and 
mentally by will, irrespective of distance, and even cause 
changes in the destinies of individuals and societies. These 
powers seem in rehearsal fabulous, nevertheless, they have 
been achieved, and we know that they are still attaina- 
ble toman. The first great pre -requisite however is as above 
stated, a prophetic or naturally mediumistic organization, 
and where this exists, culture will do the rest ; where it is 
not bestowed by nature, the next step is to change the phy- 
sique, and so modify its inherent tendencies, as to afford 
prepared conditions for the exercise of magical powers, and 
it is the recital of these conditions that will engage our at- 
tention during this and the following few sections. 

In the first place, let us disabuse the minds of those who 
have been informed that magical knowledge was to be pro- 
cured only through initiation into the ancient mysteries, 
or certain modern branches of those orders that may still 
be found banded together in the Orient. This is emphati- 
cally a mistake, if not a a wilful perversion of the truth, on 
the part of those who may be still interested in throwing 
the halo of mystery around their cherished pursuits. 
There is absolutely nothing in the initiatory rites of any 
ancient order which can promote magical powers or spirit- 
ual afflatus. It is in the discipline enjoined upon initiates, 
and the effects of real physiological changes thus wrought 



161 

in their systems, that the entire virtue of the initiation 
consists ; furthermore, if such neophytes as entered upon 
the preparatory degrees of their initiation, did not mani- 
fest the well-known signs of innate magical power, or if 
after due preparation, they did not give evidence of the 
possession of magnetic or mediumistic faculties, they 
were never permitted to take rank as Hierophants, never 
elevated to that last degree which constituted them 
Adepts. 

To be an " Adept," was to be able to practice magic, and 
to do this was either to be a natural prophet, cultured to 
the strength of a magician, or an individual who had 
acquired this prophetic power and magical strength through 
discipline. The author has passed many years in India, 
Arabia, China, and other eastern lands, and has frequently 
practiced, as well as witnessed the rites of initiation in dif- 
ferent societies, formed for the study of Magic. 

From these, and opportunities suggested by the history of 
more remote times, we may confidently allege, that unless 
in the persons of naturally endowed mediums, or those whose 
organizations have been changed by long and persistent 
methods of discipline, magical rites have never successfully 
been enacted, neither have magical results been obtained 
by virtue of cabalistic words, fumigations, incantations, 
or other ceremonies alone. There are those now living, 
whose opinions are entitled to respect, who take other 
ground than this, and allege that the mere pronunciation 
of certain words, superstitiously termed " cabalistic," is 
sufficient to summon spirits of an inferior order to the 
speaker's presence, and that the possession of talismans 
and amulets will effect the same results. The author 
believes he shall be able to sustain his own fixed opinion 
to the contrary of these beliefs, by citing the teachings of 
the most authoritative Mystics of ancient and modern 
times. 



162 

For the present we shall argue from the stand-point 
assumed above, only adding that from early boyhood, the 
^ author has himself been both subject and operator in 

magical practices, and though often associated with noble 
minds fully skilled in the speculative philosophy of spirit- 
ual subjects, he has failed to find any operators in occult 
lore, who depended upon knowledge alone, or who had not 
•^^ qualified themselves by preparatory discipline, or been 

^1 prepared by inherent endowments, ■ for the remarkable 
^ achievements which constitute the Magician. 
"f Anticipating more detailed illustrations of this subject 

by a few general definitions, we proceed to say, that the 
'^ first preparatory step for the elimination of magical power 
^ is ABSTINENCE. Abstinence not alone in food, but from 
the indulgence of all animal appetites. If, for instance, the 
student proposes to essay the performance of magical rites 
J at any given period, he should set apart certain days during 
several months, for total abstinence, and during a set period 
of probation, observe the strictest laws of temperance and 
chastity. The Priests of antiquity were often married men, 
but, as we have before stated, they were not always pro- 
ij phetic men — on the other hand, the Prophets were almost 
invariably ascetics, and that of the strictest order, — never 
indulging in the use of wine, seldom of meat, the society 
of the female sex, or the enjoyment of social and conjugal 
relations. 
^ The more utterly ascetic they were, the more exalted 
became their spiritual powers, but without a certain amount 
of fasting and ascesticism, let none expect to succeed in 
magical practices, for the physiological effects which fast- 
ing and asceticism produce, are unalterably essential alike 
to the male or female sex, in the development of the power 
under consideration. 

The North American Indians, no less than the Charibs 



163 

and South American tribes of poor, uneducated aborigines, 
compel their young men to undergo probationary fasts for 
a period of some eight or nine days, wandering meanwhile 
through the forests, and carefully avoiding contact with 
any of their fellow-men. These ascetic practices antedate 
their assumption of the duties of manhood, or the positions 
of power and trust, to which the red men deem their sons 
may become eligible, and it is claimed that this discipline 
is necessary to enkindle the noblest fires of manhood, 
quicken their powers of perception, accustom them to 
endurance, and above all, stimulate the latent spirituality 
of their Souls to perceive and commune with invisible 
Guardian Spirits. During these probationary states it is 
claimed that their Spirit Guides appear to them, reveal 
their destiny, instruct them in their choice of a mission, 
and establish a rapport between the spirit and mortal, 
which is continued through life. 

Thus do these children of nature, these poor savages, as 
the proud Civilian contemptuously denominates them, 
instinctively perform those initiatory rites which it was 
the boast of the highest philosophy of antiquity to have 
instituted. 

Every nation of antiquity practiced this species of dis- 
cipline, previous to entering on a career of spiritual prowess. 

The Sybils of Greece and Rome, the Hebrew prophets, 
the Indian Ecstatics and Egyptian mystics ; the Chaldean 
soothsayers and Roman augurs, the Medes, Persians, 
Chinese and Japanese, all taught these necessary modes of 
preparation for prophetic offices. 

All the mystics of the Middle Ages exalt the practices 
of abstinence, and insist upon its necessity. Of all classes 
of religious thinkers, the Christians should be the most faith- 
ful in the observance of this rite, since it was charged 
upon them both by the example and precept of their 



164 

founder, and prescribed as an essential of spiritual disci- 
pline, both in the old and new Testament, and yet the 
Roman Catholics alone, of all the sects of Christian! t}', 
observe abstinence as a part of their religious duty ; and 
perhaps it is to this cause that we may attribute the greater 
prevalence of spiritual manifestations amongst them, than 
with any other religious thinkers of Christendom. An- 
other mode of preparatory exercise for spiritual exaltation 
is prayer. Prayer, not in the mere routine form of verbal 
solicitation, but sincere aspiration of soul towards the great 
Source of all life, light and inspiration. And prayer must 
be supplemented by solitary communion with the inner 
consciousness, long periods of seclusion from the external 
world, and a complete abstraction of the senses from all 
outward observances ; soul musings on the great I Am, and 
^ \ that deep absorption of the reflective powers upon the 
-V spirit within which constitutes the triumph of the Soul 
over matter and its belongings. Ablution, too, is another 
method of preparing the physique for the flow of the Astral 
. fluid. By frequent ablutions the skin — the organ of the 
^ dual functions of evaporation and absorption — is prepared 
"^ for a free transmission and reception of that Astral fluid 
"^ which constitutes the magical element. During the inter- 
vals of fasting, the food should be very light, consisting 
chiefly of vegetables and fruits, whilst all stimulants or sala- 
cious substances calculated to excite the senses or pamper 
the appetites, should be carefully avoided. Tea and coffee 
have not only been deemed admissible, but taken in mod- 
erate quantities are recommended by some modern mystics, 
although the stricter order repudiate their use. It is quite 
evident that the ancients understood the uses of animal 
magnetism. The temples of the east are covered with 
representations of this practice in the treatment of the 
sick, and the constant allusion to it in ancient and classical 



165 

writings leaves no doubt but that it was the universal 
method of therapeutic practice. 

Animal magnetism was also the method bj which the 
highest rites of initiation into the sacred mysteries were 
completed. Using this term in its modern sense, we find 
it was the special virtue by which both in ancient and 
modern mysticism the potential powers of the magical 
element in man is awakened. 

The chief value of the initiatory rites of all secret soci- 
eties, lays in the psychological effect they exert on the 
senses by the fumigations of incense, the presentation of 
scenic illusions, the performance of delightful music, no 
less than the effect which the rehearsal of high thoughts 
and sublime ideas must produce on the already over- 
wrought mind. When to all this is added the magnetic 
effect imparted by the presence and manipulations of pow- 
erful adepts, whose Astral fluid, charged with magical 
strength, is infused into the system of the Neophyte, it can 
hardly be wondered at that the final rites of initiation in 
such societies as are banded together for the purpose of 
discovering and practicing the highest and most occult 
laws of Nature, cannot fail to send forth Hierophants who 
feel as did Pythagoras when issuing from the crown- 
ing rites of Egyptian mysticism, " that he had been in the 
presence of the Gods, and drank the waters of life anew 
from divine chalices." 

As a special illustration of our subject, we commend 
the following item of philosophy, extracted from " Ghost 
Land," to the reader's attention. It refers to the experi- 
ences of the most powerful order of magicians now in 
existence : 

"They acknowledged that the realm of spiritual being was ordiuarily invis;ible 
to the material, and only known through its effects, being the active and con- 
trolling principle of matter ; but they had discovered, by repeated experiments, 
that spiritual forms could become visible to the material under certain conditions, 



166 

the most favorable of Tvhich was soiunaiubulism procured through the magnetic 
sleep. This state, the}^ fouud, conUl be induced sometimes by drugs, vapors and 
aromal essences ; sometimes by spells, or through music, intently staring into 
crystals, the eyes of snakes, running water, or other glittering substances; occa- 
sionally by intoxication caused by dancing, spinning around, or distracting clamors; 
but the best and most efficacious method of exalting the spirit into the superior 
ivorld. and putting the body to sleep, was, as they had proved, through animal 
magnetism." 

After an experience of more than forty years subsequent 
to the period when the author learned the truth of the 
above quoted fragments of philosophy, he lives to confirm 
them in every iota, and especially the last sentence quoted, 
which, to his apprehension, contains the true gist of all 
mao'ical experiences. 

No methods ever have been found so potent for kindling 
up the most exalted fires of the soul, or transmuting its 
latent powers into active operation, as " the laying on of 
hands," or the magnetic manifestations of powerful, well-^ 
intentioned magnetizers, in a word, the infusion of the vital 
forces of a mighty and highly charged Adept into the 
organism of a susceptible and receptive subject. 

All other modes are merely preparatory, but they can 
never equal the effect of that last, best magical change, 
which can be wrought only by the infusion of the Astral 
fluid of one organism into another. 

This is the last act of initiation in the highest temple 
rites of old. This is the potent spell by which Hindoo 
Fakeers obtain from their master minds, the seal upon their 
magical studies. The Patriarchal act of blessing, the 
initiatory rites of the Jewish Priesthood, the Apostolic law 
of communicating virtue, was all wrought by '' the laying 
on of hands." 

The Pentecostal gatherings of the early Christians were 
simply means of magnetizing each other by accordance of 
a common will, and the focalization of ideas to a common 
subject. 



167 

Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and most of the middle age 
mystics, well understood the virtue of magnetic relations, 
whether between animate or inanimate existences. In the 
citations we shall have occasion to make concerning their 
magical formulae and opinions, it will be seen that they 
recognized '' magnetism and psychology as the two grand 
supports of the Temple of Spiritism." 

Assuming that the Neophyte, who desires to exercise 
magical powers, has faithfully prepared himself by the 
methods prescribed above, that he has subjected his frame 
to fastings, ablutions and strict abstinence ; observed periods 
of seclusion, and disciplined his spirit by silent commun- 
ings with Deity, the spirit of nature, and his own inner 
consciousness, all that remains for him to do is to seek out 
a few harmoniously-disposed persons, who, with pure aims 
and high aspirations, shall join with him in the search for 
light and knowledge. Let these unite themselves into a 
select societj^, and, after the same order of preparation en- 
joined above, proceed to magnetize each other, selecting 
for the work, the most powerful and well-composed of their 
number — in fact, the one who most nearly conforms to the 
Pythagorean type described in the last section as " No. 2." 
Should there be no chance to form such an association as 
is above suggested, let the Neophyte seek until he finds a 
magnetizer who corresponds as nearly as may be to the 
noble type of manhood required. Let such an one lay his 
hands, illuminated with the pure, invisible essence of Soul 
fire, on the Neophyte's head. Let manipulations of mag- 
netic power, accompanied by the infusion of strong aspira- 
tional will, be practiced at given periods of time ; let these 
exercises be conducted uninterruptedly, steadily, firmly, 
and with high and noble intentions, and they cannot fail 
to perform the last best work of converting the Neophyte 
into the Adept, the passive subject, into the active operator. 



168 

r In the final formulae of evocation, the mind must be con- 
centrated fully on the purpose and presence most desired. 
I Thus, if the object be to summon the attendance of be- 
I loved spirit friends, the ordinary methods of waiting, either 
' alone or in a small harmonious gathering, now so popu- 
larly practiced amongst modern spiritists in Europe and 
America, may be sufficient to ensure the desired results. 

The performance of very good and spiritually inspired 
music should always precede, or rather form the invocatory 
process in such circles, the effect of good music producing 
as great a difference in the atmosphere as on the feelings 
and sensations of the listeners. 
,- The light on such occasions should always be subdued, 
as light is motion in the atmosphere, and tends to promote 
an energy of action which is unfavorable to the influence 
of the Astral light, in which spirits live and move and 
have their being. 

Material light and Astral light are as antagonistic to 
each other as the north poles of separate magnets. They 
mutually repel each other ; hence, avoid as much as 
possible the action of material light. For obvious reasons 
the custom of sitting in total darkness should be held 
equally objectionable, except under stringent test conditions^ 
and where remarkable evidences of physical power is de- 
manded. 

The fumigations of aromatic and fragrant essences con- 
tribute greatly to promote the conditions under which 
Elementary Spirits can manifest, but retard the approach 
of human spirit visitants. The introduction of streams of 
ozone into the apartment will be found a highly favorable 
condition to promote the communion between spirits of 
mortals and their friends in the form. Besides this, the 
action of a gentle current of electricity, evolved from an 
electro-magnetic battery, should be infused into the sys- 



169 

terns of the investigators, as it not only increases^ the 
strength and quantity of the Astral fluidjpresent|in each 
organism, but benefits the health, and prevents the deple- 
tion of vital force. The ethereal character of ozone, and 
the force of electro-magnetism, are also strongly in har- 
mony with the Astral fluid whii^h forms the bodies of 
spiritual beings, hence their use at spirit circles will be 
found effective and beneficial. 

As the Spiritists of this asce have enjoyed an extended 
experience in the constant intercourse, presence, and coun- 
sel of their " household Lares," it is needless for us to offer 
farther suggestions on this branch of our subject at present, 
save to add that the methods of intercourse with ail spirit- 
ual existences will be found reduced to general principles 
in this volume, and may therefore be applied universally 
to all forms of communion between the invisible and visi- 
ble worlds. 

The means of awakening latent spiritual forces, or the 
processes of invoking and procuring the presence of spirits, 
may be conducted through any of the avenues to the 
material senses. For example : the magnetic sleep on 
the one hand, and the " man tic frenzy " on the other, may 
both be produced by appeals to the sense of hearing. 
The one is induced by soft and delightful strains of music, 
the other by noise and distracting clamor. Civilized 
nations are naturally most satisfactorily affected by the 
former mode ; barbarous or semi-civilized peoples by the 
latter. Dull, monotonous, rhythmical intonations act an 
intermediate part between these two extremes, and are 
particularly favorable to the commencement of all magical 
ceremonials. 

Appeals to the spirit can also be successfully made 
through the eye. The sight of frightful objects causes a 
revulsion in the entire circulatory system, lowers its tone, 



170 

and may even suspend its functions to the point of swoon- 
ing. The reverse of this action is produced by pleasing- 
objects, beautiful colors, charming scenes or persons, all of 
which signs, stimulate and quicken the circulation, tending 
to diffuse a soothing and healthful glow throughout the 
whole system. 

Another very effective mode of acting upon the sense ol 
vision results from gazing intently on mirrors, crystals, 
precious stones, shining bodies, or pure fluids. The mag- 
netic rays which are reflected back into the eye from these 
objects pierce the brain, and charge it with Astral light, 
whilst the fixidity of the action induces that self-magneti- 
zation which is the first step in somnambulism, trance, and 
ecstasy. Still another mode is in the inhalation of stimu- 
lating narcotics or aromatic vapors. As before remarked, 
these processes are essential to the control of Elementary 
Spirits, and produce no inconsiderable effect upon the 
senses of the magician. 

Nitrous-oxide gas, ether, and other stimulating and 
anaesthetic vapors are powerful means of inducing either 
the trance state or " mantic frenzy." For the evolution 
of the latter condition no mjethod has proved so effective 
as violent gesticulations, dancing, jumping, leaping, spin- 
ning round in circles, in a word, emulating the actions of 
the Oriental Ecstatics, in whom the "mantic frenzy," and 
the exhibition of the most astounding preternatural powers 
seem always to require these preparatory processes. And 
here we must strictly impress on the reader's mind the 
fact, that in describing these abnormal proceedings, we do 
not present them as examples for imitation^ or commend 
them as even possible for the execution of " well-to-do " 
ladies and gentlemen^ moving in ilie first circles of London^ 
Paris or America. We are simply answering the oft- 
repeated question raised by the admirers of Art Magic, 
"What can we do to pertiect ourselves in its practice 1" 



171 

We may have conclusions to draw ere we close this 
volume, which will induce the aspirants for magical 
powers to regard with more interest and reverence the 
pearls of spiritual beauty they are constantly treading 
under foot, whilst their eager gaze is directed longingly on 
some glittering bauble lar away up the mountain heights, 
whose rugged paths their daintily slippered feet would 
essay in vain to climb, — but these conclusions can only be 
understandingly arrived at when our work is done ; to 
the act of present duty, therefore, we must now return. 

The use of Hasliejesh, Napellus, Opium, the juice of the 
Indian Soma, or Egyptian Lotus plant, besides many 
other narcotics of special virtues, constitute a large portion 
of the preparatory exercises, by which Oriental Ecstatics 
produce their abnormal conditions ; but when we name the 
last essential for the due performance of magical rites, we 
may confidently assure our readers we include all lesser 
means, and are about to disclose the true secret of the 
Philosopher's Stone, and the mystic Elixir Vitse, nay, we 
speak of an element more potent than either, for we point 
to the source and end of all Deific, no less than human 
capacity, the all-omnipotent and resistless power of Will. 

When the great Essenian Teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, 
assured his Disciples, if they had faith, as a grain of mustard 
seed, they could move mountains, and cast them into the 
sea, he uttered no myth, spoke in no parable, but enunciated 
a truth which the Adept of every country, and every age, 
will fully confirm. 

The power of faith, is the power of will, the essence of 
Soul, and Soul's action in producing forms, and emulating 
the creative functions of the Divine Will. 

Will is the purpose of the Eternal One, outwrought in 
existence — and its operation in the outgrowth of more 
fully perfected mind ages, will elevate mankind to the 
functions of Deity, by its triumphs. 



172 

Every Mystic, Sage, Magiciun, and Psychologist, every 
student, ancient or modern, ranges the power of the human 
will in the category of all supreme intelligence, and attri- 
butes to its exercise, the highest achievements of the true 
magician. Still it must be borne in mind that pur present 
system of abject subservience to the opinions of our lellow- 
men, and our slavish dependence on popularity and custom, 
utterly neutralizes this all-triumphant and magical power 
of Will. 

In our present condition of modern civilization the 
complete expansion of Will power is simply impossible. 
We require several generations of culture, and patient ex- 
perience, ere it can attain to its true proportions, and be- 
come the executive power it ought to be, in human life. 

There are some abnormal existences that can subsist 
without food, and others in whom the processes of educa- 
tion are superseded by direct spirit teaching, so there are 
a few highly endowed minds who attain to their majority 
at birth, and who, like Jesus of Nazareth, Plato, or Py- 
thagoras, live in the realm of spirit, from their first entrance 
upon the sphere of immortality, hence they can exercise 
spiritual functions with the same ease that others use the 
external senses ; but these rarely endowed minds form the 
exception, not the rule of human life. 

We must not trust to the possibilities of miraculous 
changes in our own natures, but work for them, and in- 
dustriously, scientifically, and patiently, pave the way for 
their achievement. The culture of the Will for the execu- 
tion of abnormal acts of power is to be conducted by a regu- 
lar series of mental processes, all tending to the subjugation 
of the senses, and the exaltation of the spirit. Some of 
these have already been explained in this section, others 
will be elaborated as we proceed. The generalities of the 
process involve physiological and psychological changes, 
the methods of which have been briefly glanced at. 



173 

For the processes by which divination can be evolved, 
we refer the reader to future sections. All shall be told ; 
but, for the present, we conclude with a tribute to the 
power of the human Will. 

It is the Alpha and Omega of this mortal life, as' the 
Divine Will is the Alpha and Omega of Being. It is the 
royal power by which matter bends before Spirit, as the leaf 
bends and sways in the rushing storm. 

If the result seems to the student, who has advanced 
thus far, worth the cost, let him proceed. If his heart 
begins to fail him upon these, the first steps of the mystic 
threshold, how can he hope to succeed in ultimates which 
cost the sages of antiquity years of study, and half a life- 
time of faithful self-abnegation to achieve 7 
' The discouragements which arrest the first steps in the 
path of discovery, are but the first trials of that stupend- 
( ous will power, upcm the full exercise of which the magi- 
/cian's triumphs depend. 

' Fail now, and you fail forever. Cherish but one spark 
of hope to light your way through the labyrinthine paths 
we are destined to tread together, and every mind of or- 
dinary intelligence and indomitable purpose, may by the 
perusal of these pages become an Adept in Art Magic. 



174 



SECTION XI. 

Art Magic in India. 

India the moat (viicient land — Braliminical Order — Wltence 
derived — Forest Anchorites — Foundations of the Priest- 
ly order and Caste — Rites of initiation and method of 
preparing for Magical Towers — Summary. 

The very name of Hindostan, with its long descended 
lines of Guroos, Brahmins, Yogees, and Fakeers ; initiates 
all, into the highest and most potential of nature's occult 
powers, — is itself suggestive of Magic, and few there are 
who have glanced superficially at this subject, or read the 
extracts from popular literature in the periodicals of the 
day relating to it, who do not regard India as the birth- 
place of all that is wild, weird, and wonderful, in the oc- 
cult side of man's nature. 

The immense antiquity of the Hindostanee dynasty, the 
invincible tendency of the Hindoo mind to regard the 
scheme of being as fixed and unchangeable, and the belief 
in ".Yugs," or cycles of time through which mankind must 
inevitably pass, in the fulfillment of a destiny as immuta- 
ble as the Will of Deity, have paralyzed all effort at 
advancement, hence the basic principles of the Hindoo's 
belief, nay, most of their practices of a Theosophical charac- 
ter, are as much the stereotyped copies of what their an- 
cestors believed and did five thousand years ago, as are 
their wonderful temples and colossal images the expression 
of the same far distant period of time. It is almost im- 
possible to separate the magical practices of the Hindoos 
from the elements of their religion, and the changes which 



175 

time has wrought in the aspect of nature and the political 
institutions which have been shattered by every descrip- 
tion of national calamity, have failed to affect the deep 
metaphysical characteristics which soil, scenery, climate, 
and the doctrines of fatalism, have engrafted on the Hin- 
doo mind. 

Since the tone of ancient metaphysics has changed but 
little then with the onward march of the ages, the follow- 
ing brief summary may be regarded as a transcript of Hin- 
doo magic both in antique and modern times. Passing 
over the more sublime principles of Theism, the doctrines 
of the Trinity, Incarnation, Emanations, the Transmigration 
of Souls, etc., etc., we come to the direct practices which 
the highest forms of religious belief imposed upon Hindoo 
Priests and Devotees. 

The laws of Caste assigned to the ancient Brahmins the 
supreme control over all other classes, and the direction 
not only of spiritual ideas and teachings, but also gave them 
prerogative rights of succession, by which, through the 
assumed transmission of hereditary virtues, their sacred 
Caste was to be preserved in certain families and entailed 
upon long lines of posterity. There can be no doubt that 
the Brahminical order itself, sprang from the natural en- 
dowments of those ancient Anchorites, who at the very 
edge of historic times, and perhaps long before, had retired 
from the busy hum of the cities, and in the depths of the 
wildest solitudes, held communion with Nature and Na- 
ture's God, and by the practice of excessive devotion and 
rigid asceticism, disciplined both soul and body into com- 
munion with the invisible worlds of being. The follow- 
ing graphic description of these ancient Forest priests is 
given in the charming and truthful language of Mrs. L. M. 
Child. This gifted Authoress says : 

"In times Ancient beyond conjecture, there were men who withdrew altogther 
from the labors and pleasures of the world, and in solitary places devoted themselves 



176 

to religious contemplation. This lonely existence on the silent mountains, or amid 
the darknessof immense forests, infested by serpents and wild beasts, and as they be- 
lieved by Evil Spirits also, greatly excited popular imagination. Thehumau soul, 
unsatisiied in its cage of iiuite limitation, is always aspiring after the good and the 
true, always eagerly hoping for messengers from above, and therefore prone to be- 
lieve in them. Thus these saintly hermits came to be objects of extreme venera- 
tion among the people. Men travelled far to inquire of them how sins might be 
expiated, or diseases cured; for it was believed that in thus devoting themselves 
to a life beyond the tumult of the passions, occupied solely with penance and 
prayer, they approached very near to God, and received direct revelations of his 
divine wisdom." 

"In the beginning, these anchorites were doubtless influenced by sincere devo- 
tion, and made honest efforts to attain what seemed to them the highest standard 
of purity and holiness. Their mode of life was simple and austere in the extreme. 
They lived in caverns, or under the shelter of a few boughs, which they twisted 
together in the shadow of some great tree. Their furniture consisted merely of 
an antelope skin to sleep on, a vase to receive alms, a pitcher for water, a basket 
to gather roots and wild berries, a hatchet to cut wood foi' sacrifices, a staff to 
help them through the forest, and a rosary made of lotus seeds, to assist in repeat- 
ing their numerous prayers. The beard and nails were suffered to grow, and to 
avoid trouble with their hair, it was twisted into peculiar knots, resembling the 
close curls of an African. 

"In later times,".they shaved their heads, probably from motives of cleanliness. 
However high might have been their caste in the society of the world, they re- 
tained no ornament or badge of distinction. They wore simply a coarse yellowish-red 
o-arment made of the fibre of bark. Their food consisted of wild roots, fruit, and 
grain ; and of these they must eat merely enough to sustain life. They might re- 
ceive food as alms, or even ask for it in cases of extreme necessity ; but they must 
strive to attain such a state of indifference, that they felt no regret if refused, and 
no pleasure if they received it. They were bound to the most rigid chastity, in 
thought as well as deed. So far as they coveted the slightest pleasure from any 
of the senses, so far were they from their standard of perfect sanctity. 

" Some made a vow of continual silence, and kept a skull before them to remind 
them constantly of death. 

" In addition to this routine, they prescribed to themselves tasks more or less 
.severe, according to the degree of holiness they wished to attain, or had courage 
to pursue. Some fasted to the very verge of dissolution. In summer they ex- 
posed themselves to the scorching sun, or surrounded themselves with fires. In 
winter the^^ wore wet garments, or stood up to the chin in water. They went 
fovtb uncovered amid frightful tempests. They stood for hours and days on the 
point of their toes, with arms stretched upward, motionless as a tree. They sat on 
their heels, closing their ears tight witli their thumbs, their eyes with the forefin- 
gers, their nostrils with the middle fingers, and their lips with the little fingers ; 
in this attitude they remained holding their breath till they often fell into a swoon. 

" These terrible self-torments resulted from their belief that this life was merely 
intended for expiation; that the body was an incumbrance, and the senses entire- 
ly evil ; that relations to outward things entangled the soul in temptation and sin ; 
that man's great object should be to withdraw himself entirely from nature, and 
thus become completely absorbed in the eternal Soul of the Universe, from which 
his own soul originally emanated. 



177 

" Penances undertaken for sins committed, were supposed to procure no other 
advantage than the remission of future punishment for those sins; but sufferings 
voluntarily mcuvvei. merely to annihilate the body, and attain nearness to the 
divine nature, were believed to estort miraculous gifts from supernatural beings, 
and ultimately enable man to become God. 

"Aiming at this state of perfection, they gradually attained complete indiiffer- 
ence to all external things. They no longer experienced desire or disappointment, 
hope or fear, joy or sorrow. Some of them went entirely naked, and were reputed 
to subsist merely on water. The world was to them as though it did not exist. 
In this state the words they uttered were considered divine revelations. They 
were believed to know everything by intuition ; to read the mysteries of past, pres- 
ent, and future ; to perceive the thoughts of whoever came into their presence ; 
to move from one place to another by simply willing to do so ; to cure diseases, 
and even raise the dead. Some of this marvellous power was supposed to be im- 
parted even to the garments they wore, and the staffs with which they walked. 
The Hindoo Sacred "Writings are filled with all manner of miracles performed by 
these saints. There are traditions that some of them were taken up alive to hea- 
ven ; and impressions on the rocks are shown, said to be footprints they left when 
they ascended. By extraordinary purification and suffering, some were reputed 
to have attained such power, even over the Gods, that they could compel them to 
grant whatever they asked. 

" Thus something resembling monasteries, or theological schools, was established 
in the forests of Hindostan, at a very remote period of antiquit}^. Seven of the 
most ancient of these hermits, peculiarly renowned for wisdom and holiness, 
transmitted their privileges to descendants, and thus became the germ of seven 
classes in an hereditary priesthood still existing under the name of Brahmins.'' 

It has commonly been supposed that the strong tempta- 
tion to assume unlimited power, and acquire unlimited 
wealth which the reverence paid to these old anchorites 
opened up to them, induced the formation of a Priestly 
order, and the institution of the law of caste, by which the 
immunities and privileges they enjoyed in their own per- 
sons might be secured to their posterity. Be this as it 
may, the result was that in process of time, the Priests, 
under the title of Bramins (a name derived from Bramah, 
the first person of the Hindoo Trinity), exercised unlimited 
sway over the entire nation, not even exempting princes 
or rulers of armies. 

The Bramins are still the conservators of scientific lore, 
political influence and religious knowledge to those who 
have not protested from their form of belief Many sects 
have arisen, however, dividing up the religious world of 



178 

India into almost as many different shades of opinion as 
Christianity itself; still it is a curious and significant fact 
that no class of the community, not even the famed Bud- 
dhist Priests, ever attained as an order, to such remarkable 
powers in the realm of magical achievements as the mighty 
Bramins of India. 

It is not that their creed teaches any special devotion to 
magical art, or aims to develop miraculous powers as an 
essential of Braminical life. In this respect Braminism 
differs from Christianity, whose Younder repeatedii/ demanded 
the performance of wonderful works as a sign of Christian 
faith. 

No such charge is enforced in the education of the Bra- 
mins ; neither are all Bramins wonder-workers ; but the 
truth is that the ascetic lives practiced by the strictest 
devotees of the order, their profound study of nature, and 
obedience to nature's laws ; their contemplative habits, 
purity of diet, simplicity of dress, and perhaps the inher- 
ited tendencies bequeathed to them by a long line of spii- 
itualized ancestors, all tend to endow this caste of men 
with the rare and peculiar gifts that distinguish so many 
amongst their ranks. 

The sacred writings of the Hindoos, which are very 
numerous and rich in sublime ideality, contain many direc- 
tions for invoking spirits, controlling the inferior orders, 
and soliciting the aid and protection of the superior. 

Instructions also are given for the preparation of the 
body by fasting, chastity, ablutions and self-mortification. 
The spirit is to be disciplined by prayer, the singing of 
hymns, long periods of silent contemplation, solitary com- 
munion with God, nature, spirits, and perfect soul abstrac- 
tion from all external things. Seated in peculiar and far 
from luxurious attitudes, with the eyes fixed, and the very 
respiration regulated by abstract methods, the Atma, or 



179 

soul within, is to be continually trained to complete absorp- 
tion in Deific ideas to the exclusion of all worldly aims, 
desires, pursuits or scenes. 

Directions are given in the sacred books for the use and 
preparation of the Soma drink, of napellus, hasheesh, 
opium and other narcotics by which ecstasy and trance 
are to be induced. Fumigations, also, and the use of spices, 
gums and aromatic herbs, are described ; still a large por- 
tion of the initiatory rites by which magical powers are to 
be evolved, are not committed to writing ; but from time 
immemorial, have been orally communicated by Adepts to 
initiates and students. 

Being versed in those oral traditions, and sufficiently 
informed upon the methods of initiation to know how far 
these rites can be disclosed without fear of misunderstand- 
ing, we may venture to state that every temple of ancient 
or modern India abounds with crypts and secret chambers, 
where devotees may pass their time absorbed in silent com- 
munion with God and Angels, or engaged in waging fierce 
mental warfare with the Evil Spirits who ever beset the 
path of the neophyte, and strive to win him from the king- 
dom of light to the realms of darkness, in which their own 
unblest natures most delight. 

To combat these subtle but ever-present enemies, and 
guard their wandering thoughts against the intrusion of 
vain desires, also to regain that '' internal respiration," 
which tradition teaches was once the privilege of humanity, 
enabling God to fill the interior man, and preserve the 
breath from pollution by admixture with the outer air, the 
devotee is required to suspend his respiration and inwardly 
repeat sixteen times, the sacred syllable A U M — the inef- 
fable word, which contains the name and attributes of 
Deity, — and thus, by such methods of mental introversion, 
it is believed complete absorption in Divine things may be 



180 



attained. Directions are often given for the attitude to be 
assumed in these exercises. Sometimes the vision is to be 
directed towards the end oi' the nose ; sometimes to the 
region of the heart, liver, or umbilicus. In each of these 
points it is assumed special virtues reside ; these are 
under the government of certain planets, and the spirits 
who inhabit them. 

By sitting square on four points, , that is, resting on the 
heels, and so fixing the thumbs and fingers as to exclude 
the action of external sight and hearing, the soul concen- 
trated on these several centres of life and Astral influence, 
will call down the spirits of the planets who govern such 
regions of the body, and thus will be stimtllated into super- 
mundane force, the virtues which abound in those mystic 
centres of creative force. 

Towards the middle ages a strange, peaceful sect arose, 
who, from their methods of completely abstracting the 
senses from all external objects, and concentrating their 
soul powers in certain regions of the body, were termed 
Hesychiasts. They took up their aboHein the region of 
Mount Athos, where, under the direction of an Abbot, and 
laws founded upon the rigid discipline of monasticism, they 
devoted themselves to acts of charity, the cure of the sick, 
and the complete abstraction of all the senses from mun- 
dane things. Their mode of effecting this mental absorp- 
tion, is thus stated by one of their writers : 

" Sitting alone in a corner, observe what I tell you. Lock 3-our door, and raise 
your mind from every worldly thing. Then sink your beard upon your breast, 
and fix your eyes upon the centre of your body. Contract the air passages, that 
breathing may be impeded. Strive mentally to find the position of the heart, 
where all the mind's powers reside. At first you will discover only darkness and 
unyielding density, but if you persevere night and day, you will miraculously 
enjoy unspeakable happiness, for the soul then perceives that which it never saw 
before, the radiance in which God resides; a great light dwelling between the 
heart and the soul." 

The parity between these instructions and those which 



181 

occupy a portion of the Hindoo sacred books, has suggested 
the idea that this order of ascetics drew their ideas from 
the Vedic writings, especially those directions communica- 
ted to the neophytes aiming to attain to the exalted con- 
dition called Nirvana {the peace of God). The Hindoo 
teachers say : 

; ~" It is necessary, nay due to the soul, to free it from every human desire ; to cut 
oft' all sources of delight save those which it finds iu Xirvana. 

" Avoid contact with those of an inferior caste, the indulgence of vain thoughts, 
or the ascendency of any habit which draws the soul down to earth, and away 
from companionship with God. Obey without questioning thy teachers, and follow 
out each point in thine initiations, though they seem to lead thee to the feet of Siva. 
Abate not one moment of thine hours, nor let thy sight wander from the points 
where thj^ planet rules, or the beneficent spirits of the stars do dwell in thee." 

Such exercises as these, with incessant periods of fasting, 
abstinence, self-mortification of everj;^ kind, the severest 
penances for the most trifling offences, especially the least 
infraction of probationary discipline, lasted for years ere 
the devotee was deemed fit for admission to the higher 
rites of initiation. These, too, were communicated very 
gradually, and occupied months or years, according to the 
neophyte^s aptness and willingness to endure more personal 
suffering than the amount prescribed. In these, as in the 
preliminary rites, oral communications preserved the Tem- 
ple secrets from the supposed dangers of entrusting them 
to writing. Amongst the higher methods of preparatory 
discipline, the scholar was required to listen to recitations 
from the most occult portions of the VedaS; to commit 
many of them to memory, and repeat them constantly. 
He was also instructed in the principles, as far as they 
were known, of algebra, geometry and mathematics, 
astronomy and astrology. The Hindoos, though not so 
expert or devoted to the latter science as the Chaldeans, 
taught the influence of the planets on certain days, months 
and periods of time. They reduced tlie configurations 
and constellated order of the sidereal heavens to a stupen- 



182 

dous system, or at least laid the foundations of that belief 
in Astral and planetary order, which subsequently ex- 
panded into the magnificent astronomical religion. They 
were especially attentive to the phases of the moon, and 
attributed benign or malignant influences to the use of 
herbs, or the wearing of certain colors or precious stones 
during different phases of lunar increase or decrease. 

All herbs gathered for magical purposes were to be pre- 
pared during the moon's increase. No great undertakings 
were deemed successful unless the order of the planetary 
bodies was consulted, and their configurations pronounced 
favorable. Another of the higher stages of study in 
Priestly discipline was instruction in the use and prepara- 
tion of narcotics as means of procuring trance and divine 
ecstasy. Still another, the exercise of the will in subjuga- 
ting the lower orders of spirits, and the occult forces in 
nature. 

They were taught the magnetic virtues of plants, min- 
erals, precious stones, — especially the loadstone, — the in- 
fluence of colors, the methods of healing by touch, will, 
charms, amulets, and spells ; — the virtue of words, the 
methods of invoking spirits, and finally that form of 
manipulation called Tschamping, which simply signifies 
magnetism, or the infusion of " Akasa," the Astral Spirit of 
powerful Adepts, into their subjects by passes, touches, and 
contact, exactly on the principles of modern mesmerism. 

When the last rites of initiation were effected, it was 
tbund that the most stupendous physiological and psycho- 
logical changes had been effected in the Hierophant's 
system. He had commenced as a human being — he was 
now an Ecstatic ; he had been a creature of parts, passions, 
emotions, he was now a machine, bearing about an emaci- 
ated frame and an organism in which the possessor moved, 
breathed, spoke, but only as in a dream — yet he found him- 



183 

self endowed with a soul whose perceptions were as keenly 
alive to impressions from the invisible world, as his ex- 
ternal senses had become blunted to all earthly things. 

An Initiate of many years standing, just emancipated 
from training, having faithfully fulfilled all that is required 
of him, and elevated through powerful magnetism, into the 
position of an Adept, is less of a man than a monomaniac, 
one who deems himself dead, a Soul doomed to carry about 
with him a lifeless body. From this supreme condition of 
ecstasy, it is the duty of his teachers and leaders to arouse 
him far enough to confer upon him a special mission in life. 
If he is of the highest order of Ecstatics, he becomes a 
Yogee, a degree which excels all others in magical power. 
He may become a Bramin admitted to the first order of 
Priesthood, and be permitted to marry, and rear offspring, 
entering into all the uses and duties which belong to the 
priestly class. If his choice inclines him to. still higher 
realms of spiritual absorption, if he feels that the last stage 
of divine union with Deity, called " Nirvana" — is yet to 
be reached, he must continue his ascetic practices, nay 
double and treble their severity, retire to some dim for- 
est solitude, deep cavern, or temple crypt, and there con- 
tinue in the performance of the most terrible austerities, 
until his purified spirit is no longer of the earth, until he 
has elevated himself above the necessity or desire for food, 
the habitudes of physical being, and then will the triumph- 
ant spirit spurn the dungeon walls of a material existence. 
The Angels of Siva will respond to the Soul's cry for 
liberty, the gates of the emaciated body will fly open, and 
let the purified Soul go free ! 

The narcotics chiefly used by Eastern Ecstatics, to ele- 
vate them to the highest conditions of somnambulism, are 
first ; the Soma drink, or Asclepias acida. 

This plant is prepared by expressing out the juice either 



184 

between two stones, " braying it in a mortar/' or pounding- 
it in prepared vessels ; — the liquid thus obtained is then 
carefully strained, mixed with clarified butter, laid for a 
season on fine fresh dewy grass, then gathered up and 
swallowed as occasion requires. In preparing this drink, 
many magical ceremonies are used, the value of which will 
be discussed in their appropriate place. Still it is deemed 
necessary to use exorcisms to evil spirits, invocations to 
good, and lunar and astral observations in the preparation 
of all materials employed in magical rites. The Soma 
juice, hasheesh, opium, the napellus, and distillations pro- 
cured from two or three species of acrid fungi, are consid- 
ered the most effective narcotics appropriate for inducing 
the trance condition. A great variety of anaesthetics are 
now in use in the East, unknown to the ancients. The 
fumigations made use of were and are very numerous. 
Myrrh, cassia, frankincense, different preparations of lime, 
aloes, aromatic woods, gums and spices, as well as amber, 
ambergris, and other delicate perfumes, constituting a large 
portion of the medicaments used. 

The " Laws of Manu," one of the Hindoo sacred books, 
alleges that there are only three states in which human 
souls can exist whilst inhabiting the mortal tenement ; 
these are alternations of " waking, sleeping and trance." 
The waking state of the body is the soul's period of dark- 
ness — material light always being deemed, in Oriental 
Theosophy, the opposite of Divine light. 

In this condition, all the evils which belong to a material 
state are perceived and have power to operate. In sleep 
the soul oscillates between the attractions of matter pro- 
duced by the relations it sustains to the body, and its 
natural tendency to ascend to its true home in a spiritual 
state of being. 
\ The more perfectly the senses of the sleeper have been 



185 

subdued by discipline, the more does the soul recede from 
the body and gravitate to the Divine light ; hence arise 
those healthful, dreamless slumbers from which so much 
strength and refreshment proceeds ; but where the body is 
indisposed, or binds the soul in the chains of earthly attrac- 
tion, unquiet dreams bear witness to the struggle between 
the opposing forces of matter and spirit, and unless guar- 
dian spirits induce the dream for purposes of their own, 
the sleeper awakes but little refreshed from the mental 
strife. ^ 

Much is written concerning the philosophy of sleep 
which we have not space to quote. Trance is considered 
to be the complete liberation of the soul from the chains of 
materialism, as — except a small portion of the Astral fluid, 
which inheres to the body, and maintains the action of 
instinctive life — the fetters of matter now become so loos- 
ened, that the soul can go forth, and wander abroad in 
space. Its spiritual senses have free exercise. It is all 
eye, all ear, all perception. It can ascend to the " third 
heavens," traverse the spheres, wander over the earth, read 
the hidden things of the heart, penetrate into all secrets, 
behold the past, present and future outstretched as in a vast 
panorama, in short, A.tma (the Soul), then becomes the 
true spark of Divinity, and enjoys unfettered powers and 
unlimited functions. 

The full perfection of the trance state is very seldom 
reached until Death sets the soul at liberty ; but even an 
approximation to this Divine condition is eagerly coveted 
by illuminated minds. 

Much stress is laid upon lunar influence in seeking to 
enter the trance state, and hence the real effects which the 
moon exerts on material bodies, especially in sleep, in 
lunacy, and in producing rapid growth in plants, and de- 
composition in dead matter, form the subject of much 



186 

scientific speculation, and afford matter for highly sug- 
gestive thought. 

Besides the processes necessary to prepare a true Bra- 
min, the Priesthood admitted other devotees to certain 
initiatory rites. There were many classes of ascetics in 
India, ranging from the High Priests, or Gurooes, down to 
the begging Fakeers, who clamor for alms in every popu- 
lous city. 

The highest class of the Braminical order, the princely 
Gurooes, are educated in all the learning the age can bestow, 
and besides being practiced in the rigid school of asceti- 
cism above described, are disciplined in the noblest of moral 
virtues. 

The severe discipline and frightful self-mortifications 
inflicted by fanaticism upon the much-abused body, must 
not be understood as enjoined by the sacred writings of 
India. These, in many remarkable passages, deny the 
efficacy of such outward observances, sternly rebuke those 
who rely on them for salvation, and abound with beauti- 
ful hymns, admirable precepts and recommendations to the 
practice of deeds of charity, kindness, purity and truth. 
The excessive tendency to asceticism and self-mortifica- 
tion which has obtained for thousands of years in India, 
results from obedience to traditional law, and customs 
which have increased in stringency by the imitative habits 
of the people, and the examples of certain notable Saints 
and imaginary Avatars. Besides the Braminical Priest- 
hood, and often excelling them in spiritualistic endowments, 
are classes of Saints and Ascetics known as Sanyassis, 
Nirvanys and Yogys, or Yogees. 

These are emphatically the creme-de-la-creme of Indian 
Spiritism, and their wonder-working powers resulting from 
the most horrible self-inflicted tortures and probationary 
sufferings, are almost beyond belief In a free translation 



187 

from the Dhammapada, the work of a Brarain writer, 
who flourished in the first century B. C, the following de- 
scription is given of the status of the Nirvany, or one of 
those ascetics who had attained to the inconceivable bliss 
and purity of Nirvana — the state of peace almost amount- 
ing to absorption in Deity. 

"Patience is the highest Mrvaua. This is the word of the Buddhas." 

" If, like a trumpet when broken, thou art not roused to speech, thou art near 
jSTirvana. Anger is not known in thee, or there is no noisy clamor in thee." 

"He who has deepest insight — who knows all right and all wrong, who has 
attained to the highest— Him call I a Brahmana." 

"He who has given up all pain, all pleasure, who is without ground for new 
birth, who has overcome matter and all worlds — Him call I a Brahmana." 

Many writers are still more enthusiastic in praise of the 
Yogees than the Nirvanys. The latter are more specula- 
tive, the former the most accomplished in miraculous gifts 
of the Hindoo ascetics. The most exalted of the Yogees 
are selected as a council of Elders, and their decrees are 
reverenced as the voice of Deity. 

They form no inconsiderable portion of those fanatics, 
who, like the Fakeers. wander over the east, subjecting 
their bodies to every description of unnatural torture, that 
their heated imaginations can devise. 

It is claimed by Hindoo metaphysicians that there exists 
in the Universe, a pure, all-pervading fluid, invisible, fiery, 
radiant, wholly divine, free from the taint of matter, purer 
than ether, stronger than the loadstone, mightier than the 
thunderbolt, swifter than the winged lightning. It is heat, 
light, motion, force ; the Soul principle of being — not Soul ^ 
but its power of life, being and motion. It connects Gods 
and Men, Heaven and Earth. It is the strength, i. e.^ cohe- 
sive element, in minerals ; the growing power of plants ; 
the life of men and animals — it is Akasa, or, in other 
words, the Astral fluid, so frequently described in former 
^sections, which in nature is Astral light, in animated 



\ 



188 

bodies the Astral spirit — in substance, Astral fiiiid. The 
theory upon which asceticism is so largely practiced is, that 
the more the Soul isolates itself from sensuous habits and 
earthly surroundings, the greater becomes its power 
of freeing Akasa, and of attracting to itself this divine 
fluid from all things in nature. Thus the action of the 
Soul, using Akasa as its instrument, becomes freed from 
the entanglements of matter ; whilst the quantity, power 
and quality of this mighty essence is increased until the 
Saint becomes all Akasa. He may, for a short period on 
earth, carry about with him a poor emaciated body ; but 
he only uses this as a vehicle to enable the Soul to come 
in contact with matter — it is the last end of the staff by 
which the divine hand of spirit touches earth. 

•' It is through the abundance, power and prevalence of Akasa over matter that 
the Bokt can rip up his abdomen, withdraw the intestines, and inspect them as 
calmly as the Priest examines the entrails of the sacrifice to discover oracular 
meanings. It is by Akasa that sensation in the slain body is made void, aud 
wounds are instantaneously healed." 

"This slain Bokt truly dies ; but he feels nothing. Akasa is too potent. The 
senses are annihilated. He replaces the intestines in order to rebuild the body for 
another day's use. The Gods surround him. They infuse divine Akasa into his 
system. His hands stream with the life fluid. His breath is all Akasa. He 
breathes on the blood; it is full of life; it instantly coheres; the severed parts 
re-unite. The Akasa, which has been displaced, is replaced. What more is 
needed? The body is whole again; it cannot be hurt, since Akasa makes, un- 
makes and remakes again." 

In this philosophy be it remembered, Akasa, which is 
the Rosicrucian's Astral fluid, the Hebrew's Life, the modern 
magnetizer's Magnetism, plays the part of the creative prin- 
ciple. 

It is pure force, cohesion, which divided by the knife 
can be replaced, causing the particles, fibres, and all the 
severed tissues to cohere again exactly as before they were 
severed. 

It is the cause of growth in plants ; hence if a heavy 
charge is poured out on a seed or germ, it can cause that 



189 

growth in a few seconds, which a less quantity would cause 
in the slower processes called growth. A vast accumula- 
tion of Akasa can cause when projected by will, the heavi- 
est bodies even rocks, to move, transport them through the 
air, dissolve solids into fluids, fluids into airs, and recom- 
bine them again, for it is force. It can subdue the fierc- 
est beasts by stupefying their senses ; fascinate the ser- 
pent, charm the Boa, and palsy the Cobra de Capello. It 
can be diffused like a gauzy veil all through the atmos- 
phere, and upon it, the will of a powerful magician can 
paint any images he pleases, and thus a whole assembly 
can see the objects created by that will at one and the 
same time. The magician can envelope himself in Akasa, 
and thus become invisible or visible at pleasure. 

He can ride upon it, sail in it, stand upon it ; use it as 
the chemist uses airs, fluids, solids ; but these stupendous 
powers are only given to those who have utterly worn 
away all bodily impediments by the severest fasts and pen- 
ances, who are freed from all entanglements of sense or 
sensuous attractions ; whose souls can arise to ethereal 
spheres and communing with spirits, borrow their Akasa, 
(spiritual bodies) to aid in these operations, strengthen 
their own powers by those of potent spirits, and thus be- 
come at once a man and a spirit. 

A Soul having at command an earthly vehicle in which 
to approach matter, is yet, by the subjugation of matter 
and the exaltation of Soul, at once a man, a spirit, — a 
God. 

The reader will now understand the philosophy of the 
tremendous discipline enjoined and practiced by Hindoo 
wonder-workers, yet if they were not ^emijme wonder-work- 
ers, and the author of these pages had not for years 
proved them to be such, and partaken alike of their disci- 
pline and their powers, these enormous claims had never 



190 

been made for them, and this exposition of their philoso- 
phy had never been written. 

All Yogees, all Fakeers, all miracle-workers of every age, 
country, and caste, summon to their aid the Pitris or spir- 
its of ancestors. Bear this in mind, skeptics of ever}- land, 
careless and unthinking Spiritists, who so lighth' regard 
the privileges you have enjoyed, but will soon forfeit, if 
not more reverently used, and more intelligently appreci- 
ated. These Pitris are generally loving spirit friends, 
who delight to answer the summons of the llluminee and 
aid him to ascend to their own divine heights of beatitude, 
or to work those deeds of power which prove the ascend- 
ency of spirit over matter. 

The Fakeers, amongst whom are far more numerous 
grades than amongst the higher classes of ascetics, under- 
go like them, the most severe probationary discipline. 
Many of them, inspired by ignorant rather than intelligent 
enthusiasm, far outvie the Yogees in the severity of their 
rites, the hideous and distorted attitudes they assume, and 
the life-long miseries to which they condemn themselves. 
Their revolting attitudes, mendicant habits, and disgusting 
appearance, have too often formed the theme of travellers' 
sketches to need description here. Still there are, as be- 
fore intimated, many grades amongst them. Many perform 
years of initiatory services in the Temples, and accomplish 
themselves in the learning of the time, and speculative 
philosophy. 

Many of them are intelligent and even handsome men, 
though most generally lean, emaciated, and erratic. Some 
of these men become fire-eaters, serpent charmers, magi- 
cians, fortune-tellers, star gazers, strikers, dancers, thou- 
sand-eyed, finders of lost property, detectors of thieves ; — 
exhibitors of marvels, or mendicants. As to the wonders 
they perform, the greatest mistake in estimating them, is to 



191 

attribute their acts to legerdemain. The true Indian jug- 
gler is a man of an entirely different class. A Fakeer in 
his most degraded condition may become a juggler, but 
jugglers are not necessarily Fakeers, and their marvellous 
powers are for the most part derived solely from the ex- 
altation of their " mediumistic'' or '' magnetic" natures 
over their sensuous. 

They perform by natural physical magic, marvels which 
make the myths of the Arabian tale-teller pale before 
them, from the act of burying themselves alive for weeks 
or months, to performing musical symphonies to an admir- 
ing Audience of dancing Cobras and waltzing Boas. 

These men, like the Yogees, perform their marvels 
through the abundance of the life fluid, their perfect con- 
trol of it, and the aid of spirits whom they all insist they 
can summon at pleasure. 

They emphatically allege this spiritual aid is always 
present when they perform. They deny that they can 
work without it, and though they are often urged by bigot- 
ed skeptics, pious missionaries, or puzzled materialists, 
to deny that they solicit or can obtain the aid of s]3irits, 
they one and all affirm and re-affirm it, and insist that with- 
out the Pitris (ancestral spirits) they can do little or noth- 
ing. 

And now, reader, how like you the training necessary 
to become an accomplished East Indian magian 7 and 
which of our European or American aspirants for magical 
power, will subject themselves to the discipline above de- 
scribed for half a life-time, in order that the other half 
may be spent in performing deeds of glamour, deeds too 
that will wane in power, without a continual exercise 
of the same rigid asceticism by which the power has been 
procured 7 It will be urged that similar if not quite as 
powerful endowments exist in organisms that have not 



192 

been thus trained, nor subjected to such frightful pro- 
cesses of self-abuse and sensuous abnegation. 

This is undoubtedly true of those in whom nature has 
already planted the seeds of " mediumistic" or magical 
powers. In those whom, as we have shown in earlier vsec- 
tions, nature has endowed with an abundance of the won- 
der-working Astral fluid, it only requires skill, some culture 
and intelligent direction, to turn its exercise to such ac- 
count as the possessor desires. Still culture is needed, 
and where natural endowments utterly fail, or extra-mun- 
dane powers do not exist, art must supply the deficiency, 
and indicate the way. 

We have only to add that in East Indian magic as in 
American spiritism, in ancient as in modern times, there 
are good and bad magicians, pure and impure media. 
These attract good and bad Pitris, high and low spirits. 
Magic no less than spiritism is divided into white and 
black, good and evil. The subjects always attract a class 
of spirits correspondential to the natures of the operators, 
and to the purposes designed. 

The Hindoos, from the noble Gurooes, to the abject beg- 
ging Fakeers, all believe in Elementaries, and all believe 
that they have special power to aid in such operations as 
their natures especially sympathize with. 

There are spirits of the earth, air, fire and water. They 
vary in species, class and degrees of power just as mortals 
do ; regard mankind as their Gods, and seek their aid as 
means of reaching higher spheres ; desiring to serve them 
as opportunities of elevating themselves to the degree of 
immortality, which the souls of men alone enjoy. These 
poor embryonic beings range from the purely mischievous 
and evil, to the aspirational and good. They are the Ginn 
or Genii of the Orient, who serve mortals in proportion to 
their power to summon or command them, but we conclude 



193 

with the assurance that — from the very heart of the se- 
cret crypts of initiation, from the lips of noble Gurooes, 
dreamy-eyed Purohitas, abstracted Nirvanys and tribes of 
Fakeers, the same tale is told. 

The profoundest mysteries of initiation are the evoca- 
tion of those called " dead," and the power of the mag- 
netic touch, or the infusion of Astral fluid from one potent 
body to another. Both methods combined, form the key- 
stone of the arch which unites the spiritism of ancient 
and modern India with that of the whole civilized world. 



SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION XI. 

Illustrations of Magic in India, given through the narra- 
tives of distinguished travellers, and personal experi- 
ence. 

In the author's possession is an immense mass of testi- 
mony, sufficient indeed to fill many volumes, concerning the 
facts of extra mundane spiritism, kindred or similar to 
those recited in this section. 

As many if not all of these, seem to draw too largely on 
the credulity of ordinary readers, it is our purpose with 
each narrative of personal experience, of more than com- 
mon preternaturalism, to accompany it with a state- 
ment of similar character, veritied by some historical per- 
sonage, in whom the reader may have more confidence 
than in an anonymous writer. 

If this method may burden our work with more illustra- 
tions than seems necessary, it will at least show how much 
more universal are these gigantic products of spiritual power 
than mankind has generally believed. 



194 

During the author's residence at Benares — the holy city 
of the Hindoos — in the years 1855 and '56, a party of En- 
glish gentlemen, attracted by interest in Spiritualistic pur- 
suits, frequently visited him, and assisted in experimenting 
with the swarms of Fakeers who crowd the city, and the 
numerous professing miracle-workers who flock to Benares 
at certain seasons of periodical pilgrimage. 

One of this English party, Capt, W., an officer of esti- 
mable character and high culture, experienced during his 
stay in Benares some family bereavements, which fixed his 
mind with painful solicitude on the conditions of life in 
the hereafter. The Fakeers, lying on the banks of the 
sacred Ganges, or crouching in the city thoroughfares in 
every conceivable attitude of disgusting deformity, repelled 
this refined gentleman, and he refused to avail himself of 
their powers, as Ghost Seers, deeming the condition of the 
dead too sacred to be represented by such unhallowed 
interpreters. In vain his friends assured him these poor 
ascetics were merely instruments through whom the inhabit- 
ants of other worlds might announce their presence, as 
through the post-office or telegraph. The mourner re- 
quired for the manifestation of an angelic presence, noth- 
ing short ot an angelic instrument, and insisted that if the 
dead could return at all, it must be through means as holy 
as their own beatified condition. 

One morning Capt. W. entered his friend's apartment 
with a countenance beaming with excitement, and ex- 
claimed : " Eureka ! the great object of my search is 
found. A mighty magician is coming to Benares who can 
solve all my doubts. Report speaks of him as the greatest 
of all wonder-workers; the city is alive with interest. A 
Sacred Bokt — a veritable Lama, an incarnation, perhaps, oi' 
the Divine Buddha — is expected, and will arrive this very 
evening." Anxious to gratify the newly-awakened inter- 



195 

est of their mourning friend, the party above mentioned 
made inquiries, and found that a great Thibetian Lama 
had indeed arrived, and would give exhibitions of his skill 
to whoever desired his services. Without inquiring in 
what this skill consisted, the party, all too hastily, en- 
gaged the great Mystic, arranging that his first perform- 
ance should be given in the private residence of one of 
their number in a large Bungalow, in the vicinity of the 
city. None but invited guests were to be present, but it 
was not until some few hours before the ceremonial was to 
take place, that the party of English gentlemen learned to 
what they had committed themselves, and the true nature 
of the horrible entertainment they had provided for a set 
of extremely refined and intelligent visitors. When the 
true state of the case was disclosed, the love of the mar- 
vellous prevailed over their disappointment. The Bokt 
was no necromancer, no seer or visionist, but a great 
ecstatic — a Lama of such stupenduous sanctity that he 
was about to slay himself, die, and come to life again. 
Whatever he could or could not do, however, the engage- 
ment had been made, and must be carried out. 

The presence of seventy Fakeers of extraordinary 
power had been secured, an audience hall improvised 
an altar erected, seats provided, all the arrangements 
made, and the Bokt now illuminating the sacred city 
with his presence, proposed in view of all beholders 
to rip up the abdomen, remove a portion of the intestines 
read in them the decrees of fate, replace them again, and 
heal up the wound inflicted without damage to the person 
of the great performer. It must be confessed that when 
the full horror of this revolting rite was understood 
some of the party pleaded earnestly that the engagement 
might be cancelled and the scarcely human crowd of par- 
ticipants be dismissed with the promised fees; but the be- 



196 

lief in some that the performance could not be real, but 
would end in an act of clever legerdemain, whilst the 
hope in the minds of others of witnessing a stupendous 
triumph of spirit over matter, determined them all to 
unite in suffering the ceremonial to proceed. When the 
hour of noon arrived, the Lama appeared and took his 
seat before the raised altar on which candles had been 
lighted. Behind him was a radiant image of the sun, and 
on either side of the altar were grim idols which had been 
placed there by the attendants. 

The Lama was in person a small spare man, with fixed 
glittering eyes, an emaciated frame, and an immense mass 
of long black hair which floated over his shoulders. He 
appeared altogether like a walking corpse in whose head 
two blazing fires had been lighted, which gleamed in un- 
natural lustre through his long almond-shaped eyes. 

He was about forty years of age, and report alleged 
that he had already performed the great sacrificial act he 
was now about to repeat some four times previously. 

From the moment this skeleton figure had taken his 
seat, the seventy Fakeers who surrounded him, in a semi- 
circle, began to sway their bodies back and forth, singing 
meanwhile a loud, monotonous chant in rhythm with their 
movements. The party of spectators, twenty in number, 
were accommodated with seats in a little gallery opposite 
the Lama and so placed as to command his every motion. 

In a few minutes the gesticulations of the Fakeers in- 
creased almost to frenzy; they tossed their arms on high, 
bent their bodies to the earth, now forward, now back- 
ward, now swung them round as if thrown by the hands 
of others ; meantime their monotonous chant rose into 
shrieks and yells so frightful, that the ears of the listeners 
were deafened and their senses distracted by the clamor. 
On every side of the auditorium, braziers of incense were 



197 

burning. Six Fakeers swung pots of frankincense, filling 
the air with intoxicating vapors, whilst six others stood 
behind, beating metal drums or clashing cymbals, which 
they tossed on high with gestures of frantic exaltation. 
For some time the howls, shrieks and distracting actions 
of this maniac crew, produced no effect on the immovable 
Lama. He sat like one dead, his fixed and glassy eyes 
seeming to stare into illimitable distance, without heeding 
the pandemonium that was raging around him. '' Can he 
be really living 1" whispered one of the awe-struck English- 
men to his neighbor, but this question was speedily an- 
swered by the series of convulsive shudderings which at 
length shook the Lama's frame. His dark eyes rolled 
wildly and finally nothing but their whites were to be 
seen, spasm after spasm threatening to shiver the frail tene- 
ment and expel its quivering life. 

The teeth were set, and the features distorted as in the 
worst phases of epilepsy, when suddenly, and just as the 
tempest of horrible cries and distortions was at its height, 
the Lama seized the long glittering knife which he had laid 
across his knees, drew it rapidly up the length of the ab- 
domen, and then displayed in all their revolting horror, the 
proofs of the sacrifice in the protruding intestines. 

The crowd of awe-struck ascetics bent their heads to the 
earth in mute worship ; not a sound broke the stillness, 
but the deep breathings of the spectators. At length one 
of them who had witnessed such scenes before, addressino- 
the living creature — for living he still was, though he uttered 
no sound, nor raised his drooping head from his breast — and 
said — " Man ! can you tell us by what power this deed of 
blood is pertormed without destruction of life ? " " The 
Lama is all Atma now," responded a thin shrill voice from 
the bleeding wreck before us. " Fo keeps the Manas 
(senses), until the work is done." " But why is that work 



198 

necessary ?" rejoined the querist, " Is it right 7" " To show 
that life and death is his, Fo can withdraw the Atma 
(Soul), and give it back; it is his will to show his power." 
"Is the Lama then dead now V "The City of Brahma 
(the body) is empty; Brahma Atma has retreated." " How 
long can the Atma remain absent ?" " He returns even 
now. See, he wings his way hither, and now he must re- 
enter the City's gate, or it is closed against him forever." 
" Yet a moment ; the Akasa (life principle) has it left the 
flesh that is severed — cut 7" " Not yet — in/ it — it is warm 
— but soon the Akasa will ebb awa}^, if your will detains 
the Pitris who guide home the Atma." The querist did 
not, as invited, examine the wound, nor even approach the 
ghastly figure, nearer than was requisite to observe the 
anatomy of the intestines laid bare. A dead silence ensued. 
The living corpse moves. It raises its quivering hands, 
and scoops up the blood from the wound : bears it to the 
lips, which breathe upon it ; they then return to the 
wound, begin to press the severed parts together, and re- 
make the mutilated bod}^ The Fakeers shout, and send up 
praises to Brahma ; the drums beat, the cymbals clash, 
shrieks, prayers, invocations resound on all sides. The 
fragrant incense ascends. The flute-players, planted on the 
outskirts of the estate, pour forth their shrill cadence. 

The harps of some European servants, stationed in a 
distant apartment and previously instructed, send forth 
strains of sweet melody among the frantic clamor. 

The ecstatic makes a few more passes, and after wrap- 
ping a scarf, previously prepared, over the body as if to 
cleanse it from the gore in which he was steeped, suddenly- 
he stands upright ; casts all his upper garments from him, 
and displays a body unmarked by a single scar. Gesticula- 
tions, cries, shouts subside ; low murmurs of admiration and 
worship pass through the breathless assembly, and then the 



199 

Bokt, clasping his thin hands and elevating his glittering- 
eyes to heaven, utters in a deep, low tone, far dilFerent to 
the shrill wail of the half-dead sacrifice, a short but fer- 
vent prayer of thankfulness, — and all is done. 

The man resumes his dress, accepts gravely the presents 
bestowed upon him, dismisses his admiring votaries, and 
walks away as calmly as if he had just parted from a gay 
festivity. Subsequently questioned concerning this 
strange and hideous rite, he declared, that he had fasted 
for six weeks previous to its performance, partaking of no 
other sustenance than bread, water and a few herbs. Dur- 
ing the ceremonial he insisted that he felt nothing, heard 
nothing ; stated that he had been lifted up to Paradise and 
beheld beauties ineffable, and partaken of joys which no 
other mortal could ever know. When asked to do so, 
he exhibited the parts that had been severed, which only 
retained a small ridgy white line about three inches in 
length. This the Bokt assured the investigators was un- 
usual and might be attributed to the excess of Akasa or 
life fluid which the Fakeers dispensed. There were too 
many of them he thought. Had there been less, or 
those present had been less zealous, the parts would have 
cohered instantly. As it was, the life fluid buhhled up, and 
caused that seam by its excess. He expected to reduce it 
by manipulations. Wondering to hear this man use Hin- 
doo phrases and speak the Tamul language with great 
purity, the inquirers found he had been born a Hindoo, 
graduated as a Fakeer, and finally embraced the doctrines 
of Buddha. It was doubtful whether he had been a Lama 
at all, but such was his performance. 

We shall, according to promise, supplement this narra- 
tive with another on the same subject, published in a work 
entitled : Souvenirs Uun Voyage dans La Tartarie, et la 
Chine^ par M. Hue Pretre Missionaire. Published at Paris, 



200 

1850. For the translation^ol this narrative we are indebted 
to an excellent periodical, published by Mr. Jas. Burns, of 
London, in 1873, entitled "Human Nature." The date of 
the narrative is some twenty-five years earlier. M. Hue 
says : 

"The fifteenth day of the new moon we encountered several caravans, follow- 
ing, as we did, the direction from east to west. The road was filled with men, 
women and children, mounted on camels or oxen. They told us they were all going 
to the lamasery of Rache-Tchurin. When they asked us if our object was the same 
as theirs, the_y appeared astonished at our negative response. Their surprise 
roused our curiosity. At a turning of the road we overtook an old lama who ap- 
peared to walk with difficultj", as he had a heavy package on his back. ' Brother,' 
we said, 'thou art old, thy white hairs are more numerous than the black; thou 
must be fatigued ; place thy burden on the back of one of our camels.' After the 
pilgrim was relieved of his load, when his walk had become more elastic and his 
countanence brighter, we asked him why all these pilgrims were pacing the desert 1 
' "We are all going to Eache-Tchurin,' they said, with accents full of devotion. 
' Without doubt some great solemnity calls you to the lamasery V ' Yes, to-mor- 
row ought to be a grand day ; a lama hokt will manifest his power ; he will kill 

himself, but will not die.' We at once understood the kind of solemnity 

which had put all these Tartars and Ortous on the move. A lama was about to 
rip up his stomach, take out his entrails, place them before him, and then return 
to his normal state. This spectacle, atrocious and disgusting as it is, is neverthe- 
less very common in the lamaseries of Tartary. The hokt who is ' to manifest his 
power,' as the Mongols express it, prepares himself for this formidable act by many 
da3's of prayer and fasting. During this time he must forego all communication 
with other men and keep in absolute silence. When the day arrives the multitude of 
pilgrims assemble in the large court of the lamasery, and an altar is raised in front 
of the doors of the temple. The hokt appears. He advances gravely, the people 
saluting him with loud acclamations. He moves to the altar and there he sits. 
He draws from his belt a long cutlass which he places on his knees. At his feet a 
number of lamas, arranged in a circle, raise loud invocations. As the prayers 
proceed the Ijokt is perceived to tremble in all his members, and then graduallj^ to 
fall into phrenetical convulsions. The lamas become more and more excited ; then- 
voices are no longer measured ; their chants become disorderly, till at length their 
recitations are changed into bowlings. And it is now that the &ofci suddenly casts 
oli' the scarf which envelopes him, detaches his belt, and, seizing the sacred cut- 
lass, cuts up his stomach through all its length. While the blood is flowing from 
every part, the multitude falling before this horrible spectacle, interrogates the 
fanatic concerning hidden subjects, future events, or the destiny of certain per- 
sons. The hokt replies to all these questions by answers which are regarded as 
oracles by all. 

" When the devout curiosity of the numerous pilgrims is satisfied, the lamas 
recommence the recitation of prayers with calmness and gravity. The bokt gath- 
ers up, with his right hand, some of the blood, carries it to his mouth, blows on it 
three times, and then casts it in the air with much clamor. He rapidly passes his 



201 

baud over the wound aud all returns to its primitive state, without leaving a trace 
of this diabolical operation beyond extreme languor. The hokt rolls his scarf again 
around his body, recites a short prayer with a low voice, and all is over. And now 
the pilgrims disperse, with the exception of the most devout, who stay to con- 
template and adore the blood-stained altar. These horrible ceremonies occur with 
sufficient frequency in the large lamaseries of Tartary and Thibet. 

■'All lamas have not the power to operate these prodigies. Those, for example, 
who have the horrible capacity of cutting themselves open are never found among 
the lamas of higher rank. They are ordinarily simple lamas of bad character, and 
held in small esteem by their colleagues. The lamas who are sensible, generally 
asseverate their horror of spectacles of this description. In their eyes all these 
operations are perverse and diabolical. The good lamas, they say, have it not in 
their power to execute things of this kind, and are careful to guard against seeking 
to acquire the impious talent. 

" The above is one of the most notable sie-fa, i. e., 'perverse powers' possessed 
by the lamas. Others of a like kind are less grandiose and more in vogue. These 
they practice at home and not on public solemnities. They will heat a piece of 
iron red hut and lick it with their tongues. They will make incisions in their 
bodies, and an instant after not the least trace of the wound remains, etc., etc. 
All these operations should be preceded by prayers. 

In 1870, being on a visit to a friend residing near Paris, 
the author was informed that a party of Fakeers other- 
wise called " Fire-eaters," who had been denied the oppor- 
tunity of exhibiting their powers in London, might be seen 
and induced to give a private performance, by application 
to their leader, Lala Pokowra. These men being known 
to the author, had solicited him to procure them such pa- 
tronage as would enable them to return to their own land. 
With this view several gentlemen united to arrange a 
series of private performances, the first of which we pro- 
pose to give a brief transcript of, in the following narra- 
tive : 

Three of the spectators had already become familiar 
with the performance expected, the rest were entirely 
skeptical as to the reality of what was described, especially 
Dr. L., a Corsican surgeon, who insisted that he should 
be able to detect the trick by his acumen and scientific 
knowledge. 

It was evening before the party reached the chateau, 
and then Mons. de L., deeming they must be fatigued, de- 



202 



sired that they might have refreshments served before 
commencing. This they all declined however, explaining 
that in order to prepare for what was to follow, it was ne- 
cessary to observe a strict fast. 

It was near midnight before the arrangements were 
complete, and then all were assembled in a large hall, 
which in olden time had been used as a refectory. The 
floor was paved with black and white marble, and for this 
reason had been selected by the exhibitors in preference to 
other rooms where the waxed floors and carpets might 
have been injured. 

Several braziers exhaling incense and aromatic vapors 
were burning around the hall, which was only lighted by a 
bright fire, into which were stuck several iron bars, 
brands and other substances destined for the proposed 
exhibition. The spectators, amounting to about thirty 
gentlemen, took seats on a raised dais at one end of the 
apartment, while the Corsican surgeon, joined by two 
others of the French faculty, stationed themselves in the 
most convenient position for making their observations. 

When all were seated the exhibitors entered, consisting 
of six men, four of whom were simply attired in a tunic 
belted round the waist and reaching nearly to the knees, 
their arms, necks and shoulders remaining bare. The two 
others were dressed in the ordinary coarse attire of the 
lower class of Fakeers. These men where all excessively 
emaciated, and the preternatural glare of their fierce black 
eyes was wild and repulsive. There was a seventh per- 
sonage, not an Hindoo, but an European amateur, who be- 
came lor the nonce their Adept, Lala Pokowra yielding up 
this post to him by request, and taking a seat with the 
spectators on the platform. 

The four semi-nude men at first seated themselves on 
mats prepared for them, whilst the other two were busy in 



ti 



203 

heating irons and attending to the braziers. The smoke 
ascending to the high-vaulted ceiling, and the fitful glare 
of the fires illuminating the half-savage figures of the re- 
clining; ecstatics, produced a weird and singular effect in 
this vast apartment. Branching antlers of stags' heads, 
torn old banners, and dim armorial bearings gleamed forth 
in the flickering light, contrasting strangely with the Ori- 
ental forms that lay stretched beneath them. For some 
time they remained motionless, the two assistants, how- 
ever, stood together, chanting prayers in a low monoto- 
nous tone, and from time to time striking in rhythm a 
pair of silver cymbals. It was not until the Adept had 
sounded a few soft notes on the flageolet, that the ecstatics 
exhibited any signs of life. 

At the first intonation they raised their heads like sleuth- 
hounds scenting game, then began swaying their bodies in 
time to the music. Shriller, louder, quicker, rang out the 
tones of the flageolet — fiercer sounded the clashing cymbals ; 
louder and yet louder shouted the hoarse voices of the 
singers, and now upspringing from the ground the four Fa- 
keers are seen whirling, spinning, each as it were on his own 
pivot, arms outstretched, long hair flying in the circumfer- 
ence of each spinning humn.n column like a fringe of black 
cloud around a water-spout at sea. Faster and faster screams 
the flageolet — faster and faster spin the human tee-to-tums, 
till now first one, then the second, at length the third 
sink down in rigid cataleptic swoons. The fourth still 
spins, when suddenly, tossing one hand aloft, with a whoop 
that would have thrilled the blood of a red Indian, he 
snatches with the other a keen knife from his girdle, 
and dashes it through the fleshy part of the other extended 
arm, A torrent of blood follows the wound, but another 
and another gash succeed in quick succession, until the 
hands, face, neck, breast, and arms are streaming from the 



204 

open mouths of gaping wounds. One of the surgeons 
springs forth pale and trembling, and at a signal from the 
Adept, the ecstatic stops, and the man of science, with a 
face as white as the driven snow, examines the hideous 
cashes. — " Great God ! it is all true !" he cries. A few 
words in Hindostanee from the Adept succeed, and now 
the bleeding creature stands motionless, whilst the Adept's 
hands rapidly pass from point to point, pressing the wounds 
together, manipulating them slightly, rubbing them over, 
making quick passes above them, and lo ! the figure ap- 
pears a man again. 

All the surgeons come forward, even the spectators, 
those who have not fled sickened and fainting from the 
shocking spectacle, and gaze upon the exposed form now 
intact ; not a gash left, — not a wound unhealed, not a cic- 
atrix remaining. A cup containing a stimulating drink 
of herbs is handed to the exhibitor, who quietly wiping the 
still reeking gore from his person, subsides upon his mat 
with an air of stolid indifference. 

Meantime the voices of the chanters have sunk to a low 
monotonous cadence, yet never ceased. Now they increase 
in volume, again the cymbals clash, the flageolet gives out 
its piercing tones, when the fallen Fakeers upspringing 
from their trance, commence to sway, dance, whirl, spin. 

One darts to the blazing fire, and seizing a red hot iron, 
licks it with extended tongue ; another gathers up a handful 
of burning coals and chews them as a precious morsel, then 
whirling the lighted brands above his head, he piles them 
up in heaps, lays on them, hugs them, presses them to his 
naked breast, and dances with them till he appears a col- 
umn of spinning fire. Again the knives flash, the blood 
springs from gaping wounds, but now appealing cries and 
even shrieks sound out from shivering spectators. Shouts 
of " Stop this hellish play !" ring from many voices. Some 



205 

fall insensible, some stop their ears and close their eyes, 
and others stand like figures of stone, petrified by some 
Gorgon's head. All are unnerved, unmanned, and some 
weep like frightened children. The signal to suspend is 
given in haste and pity ; pity not to the reeking victims, but 
to the shocked spectators. 

Again the Adept and the two assistants busy themselves 
about the motionless figures. They stand as passive and 
unmoved as logs. The blood dries up ; the wounds just 
breathed upon are pressed by busy hands, the bodies 
stroked and wiped, are healed^ and not a scar is left. Up- 
right and motionless they stand, whilst the trembling spec- 
tators steal towards them, pass their hands about them, 
and turning to each other, exclaim : " This is the work of 
fiends and no mistake !" Aye, so it ever is. Any science 
which transcends the power of ignorance to explain, is 
always the devil's work, and horrible, revolting to human- 
ity and every feeling of nature as such exhibitions are, 
it needs them to convince the material scientist that there 
is a realm of spiritualism more tremendously potent than 
any that matter has yet revealed, and until this realm is 
explored, science will be driven to the ordinary expedient 
of ignorance and superstition, crying : " This is the work 
of fiends and no mistake !" 

A narrative so appalling as the above, demands like the 
former onCj additional testimony to strengthen it. Let the 
reader find this by perusing a sketch written by the Prin- 
cess de Belgiojosa, in her charming work, entitled Souvenirs 
de Voyage en Asie Mineure et en Syrie. This narrative was 
translated and published in the London Spiritual Magazine 
of 1868, from the pages of which we avail ourselves of an 
excellent translation. 

" Amongst a variety of other wouders, the Couut de Gobiuean, the Ambassador 
of France to Persia, a rationalist, but a sincere and good observer, says that every- 
body in Persia, the Mussulmans as well as the rest, assured him that the ISTossayris, 



206 



(itie of the principal sects in Persia, perform the following marvels: They fill with 
fire a largo brazier in the middle <if the room, and whilst a musician plays the lar, 
a little drum, also called dombeek, the iJ^ossayri approaches the fire. He is agita- 
ted, he is exalted, he lifts his arms and eyes towards heaven with violent contor- 
tions. Then when he is excited to such a pitch that the perspiration ponrs from 
his face 'and from every part of his body, he seizes aburning coal, and putting it in 
his mouth, blows it in such a manner that the flames issue from the nose. He re- 
ceives no injury whatever from it. He then seats himself iu the midst of the fire, 
the flames mount up and play in his beard, and caress without harming him. He 
is iu the middle t>f the tire, and his dress does not burn ; finally he lays himself 
down in the brazier, and receives no hurt from it. Others enter a baker's oven iu 
full ignition, remain there as long as they like, and issue again without accident. 
What these people do with fire, others do with the air. They thi"ow themselves 
from rocks with their wives and children, without receiving any damage, from 
whatsoever height they fall. This is the manner in which a Furzadeli, or descend- 
ant of a Pur, explained these extraordinary phenomena ; ' Since,' he said 'every- 
thing in nature is God, so everything contains, secretly but plenarily, the omnipo- 
tence of God. Faith only is necessary to put in motion and make apparent this 
power. Therefore, the more intense and complete the faith, the more marvellous 
will be the effects produced. It is not merely from the air and the fire that we 
can draw prodigies, but from objects in appearance the most contemptible. If we 
wish to call our interior virtue, whatever it may be, into action, we have only to 
apply the irresistible instrument of faith, and then, nothing is impossible.' Such 
are the ideas of the JSTossayris. 

" One fine morning, as reclining on my divan, I endeavored, but in vain, to shake 
off the stupor and headache caused by the fumes of charcoal which issued from a 
metal stove, and circulated through my closed room, I saw enter a little old man 
in a white mantle, with a grey beard, a pointed cap of grey felt surrt)unded by a 
turban of green ; he had a lively eye, and a countenance frank and good-natured. 
The old man announced -himself as the chief of certain Dervishes, performers of 
miracles, whom the grand Muphti had sent to show me their operations. I offered 
him my warmest thanks, and expressed myself perfectly ready to witness the spec- 
tacle which they proposed. The old man opened the door, made a sign, and 
quickly reappeared, followed by his disciples. 

" They were eight in number, and I must confess, that if I had met them on my 
journey, at the corner of a wood, their appearance would have given me little 
pleasure. Their clothes were in rags, their long beards untrimmed, their visages 
pale, their forms emaciated, a something indescribably ferocious and haggard iu 
their eyes, all which contrasted singularly with the open, smiling countenance 
and somewhat gay costume of their chief. These men on entering, prostrated 
themselves before him, made me a polite obeisance, and seated themselves at a 
distance, awaiting the orders of the old man, who, on his part, awaited mine. I 
experienced a degree of embarrassment, which would have been still more painful 
had the seance been of my own ordering. Happily I was perfectly innocent, and 
this consideration gave me a little self-composure, but I did not dare to make the 
sign for commencement of, I did not know what. I expected a scene of the gross- 
est imposition, which I should be obliged to applaud out of politeness, and of which 
I must show myself a dupe out of good breeding. 

" I caused coffee to be served, to gain time, but the chief only accepted it. The 



207 

disciples excused themselves, alleging the seriousness of the trials to which 
they were about to submit themselves. I gazed at them ; they were serious as 
men who expected the visit of a host or rather of a revered master. After a short 
silence, the old man asked me if these children might begin, ahd I replied that it 
rested entirely with themselves. Taking my answer as an encouragement, he 
made a sign, and one of the Dervishes arose ; he then prostrated himself before 
his chief and kissed the earth ; the chief placed his bands on his head as if to give 
his benediction, and spoke some words in a low voice which I did not understand. 
Then arising, the Dervish put off his mantle, his goatskin fur, and receiving along 
poiguard from one of his companions, the handle of which was ornamented with 
little bells, he placed himself in the middle of the apartment. Calm and self-col- 
lected at first, he became animated by degrees from the force of an interior action. 
His breast swelled, his nostrils expanded, and his eyes rolled in their sockets with 
a singular rapidity. Tliis transformation was accompanied and aided, without 
doubt, by the music and the songs of the other Dervishes, who, having com- 
menced by a monotonous recitative, passed quickly into modulated cries and yells, 
to which the regular beating of a tambourine gave a certain measure. When the 
musical fever attained its paroxysm the first Dervish alternately raised and let 
fall the arm which held the poiguard, without being conscious of these move- 
ments, and as if moved by a foreign force. A convulsive twitching pervaded 
his limbs, and he imited his voice with those of his confreres whom he soon re- 
duced to the humble role of assistants, so much did his cries exceed theirs. Dan- 
cing was then added to the music, and the protagonist Dervish executed such 
amazing leaps that the perspiration ran down his naked figure. 

" ' It was the moment of inspiration.' Brandishing the dagger, which he never 
abandoned, and every motion of which had made the little bells resound ; then, 
extending his arm and suddenly retracting it, he plunged the dagger into his cheek 
so deep that the point appeared in the inside of his mouth. The blood rushed in 
torrents from both apertures of the wound, and I could not restrain a moticm of 
my hand to put an end to this terrible scene. 

" ' Madame wishes to look a little closer f said the old man, observing me atten- 
tively. Making a sign for the wounded man to draw near, he made me observe 
that the point of the dagger had really passed through the cheek, and he would 
not be satisfied till I had touched the point with my finger. 

'' ' You are satisfied that the wound of this man is real V he said to me. ' I have 
no doubt of it,' I replied, emphatically. 

" 'That is enough. My son,' he added to the Dervish, who remained duriug the 
examination with his mouth open filled with blood, and the dagger still in the 
wound, ' go, and be healed.' 

"The Dervish bowed, drew out the dagger, and turning to one of his compan- 
i(ms, knelt and presented his cheek, which this man washed within and without 
with own saliva. The operation continued some seconds, but when the wounded 
man rose, and turned to one side, every trace of the wound had disappeared. 

" Another Dervish made a wound in his arm, under the same ceremonies, which 
was healed in the same manner. A third terrified me. He was armed with a great 
crooked sabre, which he seized with his hands at the two extremities, and applying 
the edge of the concave side to his stomach caused it to enter as he executed a see- 
saw motion. A purple line instantly showed itself on his brown and shining skin, 
and I entreated the old man to allow it to proceed no further. He smiled, assuring 



ii 



208 

me that I had seen nothing, that this was only the prologue; that these children 
cut off their limbs with impunitj' — their heads, if necessary, without causing them- 
selves any inconvenience. I believe he was contented with me, and judged me 
worthy to witness their miracles, by which I was not particularly flattered. 

" But the fact is, I remained pensive and confused. What was that ? My eyes 
had they not seen them ? My hands, had they not touched them 'i Had not the 
blood flowed ? I called to mind all the tricks of our most celebrated prestidigita- 
teurs, but I found nothing to be compared with what I had seen. I had had to do 
with men simple and ignorant to excess; their movements were made with the 
utmost simplicitj-, and displayed not a trace of artifice. I do not pretend to have 
seen a miracle, and I state faithfully a scene which I for my part know not how 
to explain. The next day Dr. Petracchi, for many years the English Consul at 
Angora, related many such marvels, and assured me that the Dervishes possessed 
natural, or rather supernatural secrets, by which they accomplished prodigies equal 
to those of the priests of Egypt." 

M. Adalbert de Beaumont, who visited Asia Minor, in 
1852, asserts the reality of the same wonders as the Coun- 
tess de Belgiojoso. He says when the dancing Dervishes 
have reached the paroxysm of their excitement, they seize 
on iron red hot, bite it, hold it between their teeth, and 
extinguish it with their tongues. Others take knives and 
large needles, and pierce their sides, arms and legs, the 
wounds of which immediately heal and leave no trace. 

It is time to bring these extravagant horrors to a close. 
We shall offer only one more example of East Indian 
spiritism, although our repertoire of similar facts, and that 
in personal experiences, would fill volumes. 

At Bengal about the year 1860, there resided a Fakeer, 
who had obtained the name of Ali Achmet from a wealthy 
Arab, in whose service he had resided for many years. 
He had been a renegade to his faith and was little respected 
in a moral point of view, but his abilities as a wonder- 
worker had gained him a great reputation amongst for- 
eigners who visited the city. At the death of his patron, 
Ali claimed that his ''father's spirit" revisiting the scenes 
of earth he had loved all too well, and being bound to the 
performance of certain good deeds that he had left undone 
in earth life, once more adopted his favorite, and informed 



209 

him, speaking tuith a voice^ that he would enable him to 
excel every Dervish in Arabia, every Fakeer in Hiiido- 
stan. This spirit kept his word. Ali achieved a great 
reputation wherever he went, and being the inheritor of 
his adopted father's wealth he gave his exhibitions freely, 
although his excessive vanity prompted him to tender 
them wherever he could find appreciative witnesses. 
Having conceived a whimsical friendship for the author, 
he spent much time exhibiting to him and his friends 
his wonder-working powers. 

In the presence of this man many spirits of deceased 
persons had actually appeared to their friends. Their 
forms had been seen standing in the waning light of evening 
with perfect distinctness, and remaining long enough to be 
fully recognized. Spirit faces, distant scenes, and the pre- 
sentment of living persons residing in foreign countries 
were frequently shown on the surface of a mirror which 
the author kept in his apartment devoted to that purpose. 
The ordinary expedient of calling in a boy from the 
street, pouring ink, walnut or fungus juice in his hand, 
and then " biologizing " him to see and describe the forms 
the inquirer wished to summon, were phases of power too 
petty to engage this Adept's attention. 

After detecting thieves, discovering lost property, being 
raised in the air, carried through the grounds on several 
occasions, producing all manner of sights, sounds and 
strange phenomena familiar enough amongst modern 
spiritists, the Fakeer would often ask his audiences 
suddenly, if they would not like some object brought them 
from distant lands, and when an afi&rmative answer was 
given and the desired object named, a muttered prayer, a 
silent invocation to his beloved familiar, or perhaps a 
low chanted song, was sure to end in the production of 
what was required, though it had to be transported for a 
thousand miles or brought across the ocean. 



210 

Many persons residing at Benares will still remember 
the time, some thirty years ago, when this magician, ex- 
hibiting his power before the Temple of Siva in the pres- 
ence of several thousand persons, caused three little half- 
naked Indian children to climb up a pole successively, one 
after the other, and when they had ascended about half 
the distance they suddenly disappeared. In two minutes 
after the last was lost to sight, a shout from the audience 
announced that the whole three were found on a plateau 
a hundred feet removed from the pole, and there they had 
appeared suddenly out of vacancy. The Fakeer explained 
the phenomenon by declaring that when the little climbers 
had ascended to a point where he had directed a circle of 
Akasa (life fluid) to gird the pole, the Pitris, headed by 
the spirit of his accommodating friend, had caught them 
up, concealed them in their own Akasa (spiritual atmos- 
phere) and only put them out of it again when they 
placed them on the plateau above mentioned. The little 
ones were entranced and remembered nothing of their 
aerial flight. 

By sticking a twig broken from a living tree into the 
ground, and extending his hand over it, or keeping his fin- 
gers pointed towards it, he could cause a fresh tree to 
spring up bearing leaves, flowers, and fruit, in less than 
twenty minutes. 

This weird creature being one day alone with the 
author, was asked to show something which should prove 
to his friend, that he spoke with no double tongue, practiced 
with no double robe ; (2.e., no concealed apparatus.) 

" What would my Brother choose to see 7" inquired Ali. 

'' What can Ali do ?" " See ! Ali wears no double robe," 
cried the Fakeer, casting away his upper garment entirely. 
" 'Tis well — proceed ! Cause the Pitris to show 'their im- 
ages in yon vase of water." The vase indicated was a 



211 

large stone tank which stood in a shady part of the outer 
court. All spoke not, but instantly pointing the staff he 
commonly carried towards the tank. — it began visibly to 
oscillate. Its weight was immense. It could not have 
contained less than six gallons of water, yet as the Fakeer's 
knotted staff was pointed towards it, — it began to slide 
along the court ; reach the open glass doors which divided 
the apartment from without, to close which, a groove of 
metal intersected the floor. 

Here the stone traveller paused like a thing of life, then 
as if reflection had ensued, it slowly but steadily floated 
up a foot above the ground, sailed in through the glass 
, doors, then gently subsided to the ground, and still sliding 
on, stationed itself at the Fakeer's feet. " Will my Brother 
give the Pitris sweet air to breathe ]" inquired the Fa- 
keer. This remark referred to the use of Ozone, cur- 
rents of which passed through an electric battery had fre- 
quently been used in that apartment in the evocation of 
spirits. There were several braziers too half burnt out, 
containing frankincense and aromatic perfumes. These 
were distributed in a circular form around the spot where 
the stone tank was held stationary. 

The battery set in working order, and the braziers 
lighted, the Fakeer seemed satisfied, and this is what en- 
sued. The fumes of the burning incense instead of as 
usual ascending to vents prepared to receive them, seemed 
to be bent by some outside power until they concentrated 
inwards towards the tank. The Fakeer now moved around 
this vessel several times, stretching both his hands towards 
it, and murmuring his low chant in subdued tones. Direct- 
ing his single witness to stand on the north side of the 
vase,, but outside the circle of braziers, he assumed a posi- 
tion exactly opposite to him, and then both perceived that 
every drop of the water in the tank had disappeared, the 
tank was empty ! 



212 

Once more moving around the vessel in circles, stretch- 
ing forth his hand which to the eye of clairvoyance 
streamed with Akasa (life fluid) like the shells, crystals and 
fingers of Reichenbach's sensitives — and lo! the water 
came bubbling back, forming under the crystalizing pro- 
cess of spiritual life infused into the empty vessel, the 
gases into which the fluid had been resolved, combining^ 
again, until the pool reached the surface, and seemed to 
attain the exact level it had before occupied. Again 
resuming his place to the south of the vessel, and beck- 
oning his companion to approach nearer, one hand of each 
being laid on the edge of the tank, figures began to appear 
on the surface of the unruffled water. Seventeen present- 
ations of forms known to the beholder appeared and dis- 
appeared in slow succession on the tranquil mirror of the 
water. Most of the apparitions represented spirits who 
had long been inhabitants of the silent land — some, how- 
ever, were friends residing in distant lands, and these were 
surrounded with scenery appropriate to the position in 
which they might then most probably be residing. 

Every picture was clear, distinct, life-like and highly 
characteristic of the individual presented, and the whole 
phantasmagoria strikingly illustrated those two spiritual- 
istic aphorisms, which have lately become so popular : 
" There are no dead" — and — " In spiritual existence there 
are neither time, space nor obstacles of matter." The last 
forms seen were those of the two witnesses themselves. 
Neither of them, however, represented the costumes they 
then wore, the one being arrayed in an uniform packed up 
in a distant wardrobe, the other — that of the Fakeer — 
appearing in the Arab dress he had long since cast aside. 
The unmistakable fidelity of the likenesses, but the singu- 
lar change in the costumes thus presented, convinced the 
two observers that this manifestation was designed to show 



213 

that the whole series of pictures were creations of the will 
— acts of attendant spirits, who, by exploring the minds 
of the mediums, shaped their representations in accord- 
ance with the images there impressed, or stereotyped in 
the memories of those they desired to serve. 

The letters of European missionaries from India, China, 
and other eastern lands, popular accounts of snake-charm- 
ers, Indian magicians, &c., especially the writings of Messrs. 
Salt, Lane, Wolff, Laborde, Mesdames Poole, Mar- 
tineau and others, have so familiarized this age with the 
magical wonders wrought in the Orient, that the insertion 
even of the limited number of narratives this section con- 
tains, might be deemed supererogatory, did we not feel the 
necessity, in a practical and affirmative work of this char- 
acter, of saying, we too have seen and can testify 
of these things, nay more ; let us add, we too can perform 
them ; but again arises the question, can such things be 
done without all the efforts and initiatory processes above 
described, or those naturally occult endowments so rarely- 
conferred ? Once more we subjoin a fragment of philoso- 
phy on this subject given by a noble Bramin, the father of 
the little Hindoo girl Sonoma, whose clairvoyance and 
extraordinary lucidity has been referred to in an earlier 
section. 

The Bramin of whom we now speak, a native of Mala- 
bar, was himself an ascetic and celibate up to the age of 
fifty years, when in the full exercise of his wonderful 
power, procured by fasting, abstinence and contemplation, 
he became a Yogee of the first degree, and one of the 
Council of Elders. 

At times he was not only levitated in the air, but during 
the performance of a solemn service on the banks of the 
Orissa, he was floated above the heads of the multitude for 
a distance of over a hundred yards. The Bramin was 



214 

moved in the direction of the river, and would doubtless 
have been carried across it, had not the great disturbance 
in the minds of the anxious spectators broken the currents 
of Astral fluid in which his spiritual conductors carried 
him, and compelled them to lay him gently down on the 
river's bank. 

After this aerial flight, the Bramin withdrew from public 
life and devoted himself to the duties of his calling as a 
healer of the sick, a work he performed solely by the laying 
on of hands. He frequently liasted for many hours, some- 
times for days together, for the purpose of curing some 
notable case of disease, but these self-renunciations always 
produced their effect in the inevitable conquest the noble 
physician achieved over the malady, however severe. 

Being present with the author on one occasion when a 
Fakeer who had been buried for eight weeks, was disinter- 
red and restored to life, in the perfection of health and 
good spirits, the Bramin was pressed by a British officer 
whose soldiers had been appointed to keep guard over the 
grave, to address the party assembled, and render them 
some explanation of the phenomena they had witnessed. 
The Bramin without hesitation answered: " Does not God 
effect all these mayiical deeds every day before your eyes, 
and yet you marvel not at their occurrence 7 The only 
difference between His procedure and that of the magi- 
cians is, that God gives to everything its due share of lilie, 
sufficient for its growth or its maintenance in being. The 
magician imparts a greater share of life than originally 
belonged to the object, and calling upon the help of spirits 
good or bad, just as he may himself be, they too bring a 
share of their life principle. 

"Thus the magician's art consists in accumulating and dis- 
pensing more of the life fluid than nature herself yields up 
without his aid. Whatever nature does slowly by process- 



215 

es of growth and change, the magician does rapidly b}^ aid 
of his larger stock of materials to work with." Here one 
of the missionaries present inquired whether such per- 
formances were not in direct opposition to the will of God, 
since had he designed them for the use of man, he would 
have himself effected them by processes of change as rapid 
as those which the magician effected. 

'' See yonder buildings," responded the Bramin, pointing 
to the city with its glittering domes and Temple orna- 
ments flashing in the sunlight. "God made the stones and 
the copper, the brass and silver, but He did not put them 
together, nor form them into a city. He gives the riches 
of the earth, and by inspiration poured into the intellect of 
man, points the way to achievement, but he leaves man 
to do the work, and whatever man can do, that is not 
hurtful to his fellow man, he ought to do, for the will of 
man is only a miniature reflection of the will of God." 

" Look at these roses ! They were once a small shoot, a 
mere petty twig, placed in the ground. Left to the natural 
processes of growth, they would slowly raise into the air, 
gather up nourishment from the earth, light and heat 
from the atmosphere. All this they do because their life 
A.kasa works within the shoot, and expands it into a tree, 
the tree into leaves, branches, flowers and seeds ; but if 
that small twig, placed in the earth, is fed and irrigated 
by the Akasa which men and spirits pour out upon it in 
vast abundance, then it waits not for the processes of nature, 
but springs up at once, shoots flowers, bears seed and dies, 
and all within the hour, instead of within the month, as 
the slower growth of nature would have ordered." — " But 
the buried Fakeer 7" questioned the officers. 

" He is a man in whom the body, reduced by fasting and 
years of penance, scarely inheres together. Nothing but 
bone, sinew and attenuated matter is there. He is all 



216 

Akasa— all force, all life. When they laid him in the 
tomb, his Soul was freed by entrancement. His body was 
left alive 'tis true, for a small portion of Akasa remained 
— enough to keep the particles of matter together. 

" To prevent these from being excited to motion, the 
ears, nostrils and mouth were stopped with wax, no air 
could enter, and so the body remained intact ; its functions 
were all suspended at a single point, and no attrition 
could take place between the atoms. It was as if a 
clock had been stopped, and then placed in an exhausted 
receiver where no action of the outer air could reach it or 
cause its particles to wear ; remove it from its encasement, 
and it resumes its action just where it was stopped. 

'' You saw the Fakeer exhumed, the wax removed, and 
the natural air admitted to the natural passages. The 
friction used, re-awoke the slumbering functions ; the Akasa 
of those around poured in in streams upon the receptive 
form. The Soul, warned of the period when it must return, 
is attracted back to the uninjured body, and so re-entering, 
the man resumes the machinery of life just where the clock 
was stopped." But the officers would know if they could 
be inhumed or any ordinary man, by such a process, and 
then resume their earthly life again '? 

The Bramin smiled, and gazing upon their stalwart 
forms, replied : " Their souls inhered too closely to their 
bodies. Their souls were not half grown, their bodies 
overgrown. No ; the trance with them could not be com- 
plete, and the life principle of their spiritual bodies was 
so closely interwoven with the particles of matter, that 
the soul could only be completely removed from the body 
by death, and anything that closed up the avenues of life 
in those bodies would so injure them as to crush out the soul 
altogether." " No ! no ! It was none but the half dead 
ascetic to whom such contempt of material laws was pos- 
sible." 



217 

Every feat of magic was the triumph of spirit over 
matter. But the spirit must^ be very strong and the hin- 
drances of matter slight before those triumphs could be at- 
tained. The officers retired, but no tidings have ever been 
circul^ited concerning the fasts by which any of their 
number prepared themselves for living inhumation. This 
Bramin teaches that for the performance of gross ponder- 
ous work, the more earthly and earth-bound spirits are 
in attendance, whilst to aid in illusory, magical or ele- 
mentary feats of power, such as flying, walking on air, 
resisting fire, producing metals, causing plants to spring 
up suddenly, or transporting objects through the air; ele- 
mentary spirits called in the East Ginn or Genii, are al- 
ways ready to aid, and that the control which man exer- 
cises over them and the labors which they perform in his 
service, benefit and aid them to advance in the scale of 
being. 

These beings abound in the elements, are very strong, -/ 
and prone to cling to man as a God and a great Ruler. If 
he delight in evil, the evil in nature flies to him as the V 
needle springs to the magnet, whilst pure planetary spirits, 
good angels, or souls of the just and true, are equally re- ^ 
pelled by the evil influences which evil men give oiF. 

" Forsaken of God — abandoned by my good angel !" 
cries the evil doer. Never so ! but evil, causes man to flee 
from God and repels good angels from him. He shuts the \ 
door against them and retires into the citadel built up of 
his own bad purposes and strengthened by the sympathy 
of equally degraded natures. Man fear thyself! and trem- 
ble only before the Devil of thine own conception ! . All 
men, good and evil, can attain to high spiritual powers by 
the physical processes so elaborately described in this sec- 
lion, but few can attain to the highest good which may 
exist independently of spiritual power at all. Still, to 



218 



those who desire it, the means are herein made plain. 
No item must be disregarded or thrown away as an idle 
superstition. Occult powers reside in planets, stars, 
suns, systems, inhere in atmospheres, plants, stones, min- 
erals, waters, vapors, and living beings. Nature ever de- 
mands an equilibrium. Matter or spirit will ever be in 
the ascendant in every human organism, and whichever 
prevails draws from all surrounding objects a quality of 
force to match its own. 

Thus the gross man, the coarse feeder, the sensualist, 
the miser, find throughout nature the quality of element 
and the character of spiritual life that feed their specialty 
and pander to their tastes. The same law applies to the 
reverse of this position, and therefore it is, that a saint or 
the worst of sinners may each attain to magical powers ; 
but magic is the sunbeam which gives life to the blooming 
rose when it falls on the rose germ, or quickens into being 
the noisome fungus when its radiance falls on heaps of cor- 
ruption. 

The forces of spirit are designed for good and use, or they 
could not be accessible to man. In ages yet to come, when 
the earth and its living freight are all spiritualized, that 
which is magic now will be ordinary practice then. The 
heavens will kiss the earth, and the thin veil which di- 
vides the inhabitants of either realm will become so trans- 
parent that every eye will pierce its mystery and rejoice 
in its holy revealments. Until then " knowledge is 
power," and all men by knowledge may achieve the power 
of practicing art magic. 



A 




I 



irtilil 






219 



SECTION XII. 

Magic Amongst the Mongolians. 

Few nations of the East exhibit a greater amount of 
devotion to magic than the Chinese, a people whose antiqui- 
ty is the problem of history^ whose priority of origin 
disputes the palm even with India, yet as far back as his- 
tory can trace or tradition bear witness of, up to the pres- 
ent day, China, with all its surrounding Mongolian sister 
nationahties, has inseparably blend&d its religious belief 
with faith in spiritism. Mongolian spiritism divides itself 
into two kinds ; the one is the performance of extra mun- 
dane acts or feats of magical power, the other, communion 
with spirits procured through what is now understood to 
be natural spiritual endowments. Although there is the 
closest resemblance between the magical practices of the 
Mongolians, and the East Indians, it would be impossible 
to overlook the spiritism of so vast a nation as that of 
China, and one in which its practices are so widely en- 
grafted in the people's nature. The magic of the Mon- 
golians, like that of the East Indians, is in a measure the 
results of their religious faith. 

Buddhism, the ruling faith of the Mongolians, is said to 
be professed by over four hundred millions of the world's 
inhabitants, or about one-third of the human race, and 
to have been imported by Fo, from Thibet, some four 
thousand years ago. The doctrines of Buddhism differ 
widely from Braminism. It teaches the total annihilation 
of Caste, the unity of the whole human family ; it is kind , 
just, merciful — -conservative of life — respecting the rights 
of every creature, from the highest man to the lowest 



220 

worm — from the mammoth to the aiiimalculse. It ad- 
mits of no superiority except in morals, no difference, save 
in educational culture and degrees of civilization. Its 
sweet and gracious teachings divide the power with Bra- 
minism in India, where in all probability it originated, 
and spread over the territory inhabited b}^ the Mongol tribes. 
The Buddhists allege that to those who in truth, purity 
and constancy, put in force the doctrines of Buddha, the 
following ten powers will be granted : 

1. They know the thoughts of others. 2. Their sight, pierciug as that oi the 
celestials, beholds without mist all that happens in the earth. 3. They know the 
past and present. 4. They perceive the uninterrupted succession of the Kalpas 
or ages of the world. 5. Their hearing is so fine that they perceive and can inter- 
pret all the harmonies of the three worlds and the ten divisions of the universe. 
6. They are not subject to bodily conditions, and can assume any appearance at 
will. 7. They distinguish the shadowings of lucky or unlucky words, whether 
they are near or far away. 8. They possess the knowledge of all forms, and know- 
ing that form is void, they can assume every sort of form ; and knowing that 
vacancy is form, they can annihilate and render nought all forms. 9. They 
possess a knowledge of all laws. 10. They possess the perfect science of con- 
templation. 

With all this vast claim for occult power, their means of 
attaining it are chiefly moral, and will be found in the fol- 
lowing transcript of their belief: 

"From its birth to the present moment, true Buddhism stands alone as a 
religion loitliout offerings. It is confined to good works, to prayers, to charity, to 
meditation, to the presentation of fruits and flowers in the temples of the Most 
High. Buddhist priests perform few, if any functions that are sacerdotal; they 
are c(mfraternities of pious men who live on alms, who act as patterns of the 
sternest forms of self-renunciation, or as teachers of the highest and purest mo- 
rality. They are celibates who devote themselves wholly to religion ; who ab- 
stain from animal food, and who drink only water; who live in nervous fear lest 
they may destroy even the life of an insect." 

It will thus be seen that the contemplative life, the 
practices of asceticism, chastity, purity and good works are 
made the foundation stones of the extraordinary powers 
attained to by numbers of the Buddhist priests, no less 
than subordinate personages in that beautiful system of 
belief 



221 

The doctrine which assumes that the soul of their great 
founder, Fo, or Buddha, is not only re-incarnated in the 
great High Priest and Ruler of their nation, the grand 
Lama, but that his divine spirit may also be distributed 
through thousands and tens of thousands of such subordi- 
nates as devote themselves to a religious life, has flooded 
China, Japan, Tartary and Thibet with Lamas, who 
swarm in every district and city of Mongolian rule. Like 
the Fakeers of India, the Dervishes of Egypt, and the 
Christian Friars of the middle ages, these Lamas represent 
every grade of intelligence, every class, from the richest 
to the poorest^ and every quality of character from the 
most pious to the most degraded and impious. Lamase- 
ries are. established all through the Mongolian Territories, 
where the good and the true, no less than the ignorant and 
vicious, can recive their education and become fitted for 
the work, if not the duties of their semi-priestly office, and 
thus it is that thousands who are too lazy to devote them- 
selves to mechanical toil, or others who are simply ambi- 
tious to excel in the arts of the magician, fortune teller, 
or wonder-worker, enter these lamaseries and spend years 
in the routme of their discipline, for the sake of going 
forth with the coveted prestige of Lamaism. Many of 
these disciplinarians prove themselves to be excellent me- 
diums and natural spiritists ; a still larger number endure 
frightful penances, and pass years in self-mortification 
and abstinence, simply for the purpose of becoming great 
wonder-workers, and earning a miserable and precarious 
living in the arts described in our last section, namely in 
fire-eating, the mutilation of the body without ultimate 
injury to the tissues, the execution of great magical feats, 
even the power which many of these Lamas actually possess, 
of transporting themselves invisibly from place to place 
through the air. The capacity to work these marvels, like 



222 

the most ponderable and astonishing feats of physical force 
effected in the presence of modern spirit media, are never 
enacted through the most refined, or philosophical of the 
great Brotherhood. They are assumed to be produced by 
strong and earth-bound spirits, also by the Ginn or evil 
Elementaries, who abound in the lower parts of the earth, 
and who delight to serve mortals as gross and phj^sically 
inclined as themselves. 

During the author's residence in Tartary, he witnessed 
feats of magic which could scarcely be credited, yet, though 
the media through whom they were produced, had led 
ascetic lives, and changed their physical systems by long 
years of self-inflicted tortures, they were never highly in- 
tellectual persons, and rarely endowed with qualities which 
entitled them to much respect. 

In the magical practices of these lamas they generally use 
fumigations consisting of narcotic or stimulating vapors, 
and drinks of the same character. Also they induce ec- 
stasy by loud noise, the beating of drums, crashing of cym- 
bals, braying of wind instruments, shrieks, yells, prayers, 
and invocations, far more calculated as one would suppose, 
to scare off the Gods, than to attract them. Sometimes 
they dance in circles, or spin round until they drop down 
in foaming epilepsy, or insensibility. 

The Chinese sacred books abound with directions for the 
invocation of spirits, and the use of talismans, spells, amu- 
lets, fumigations, and other means of inducing trance, and 
spiritual vision. 

A vast number of both males and females in China are 
natural mediums. Writing, rapping, seeing, trance, and 
even materializing mediums abound in the Mongol Empire, 
and in nearly all the exhibitions of spirit power, the media 
are more strongly gifted, more honest and far more reli- 
able, than the professional spiritists of Europe and Amer- 
ica. 



\ 



223 

Visitors in some parts of the '' Celestial Empire" are in- 
vited to witness trials of strength between parties of 
spirits controlling rival practitioners. 

The author was present on an occasion when a large 
eight-oared boat being brought into a public hall in broad 
daylight, where about a hundred spectators were ranged 
around the sides of the hall, leaving the central space free, 
four Lamas and their attendants followed the boat, and 
placed it at one end of the cleared space. One of the party 
then read aloud the names of eight spirits engraved on the 
oars, and as each name was pronounced, that one of the oars 
thus inscribed was tossed up in the air, and then returned 
to its appropriate place by invisible power. 

Subsequently, certain spirits responding to the cries 
of the Lamas who invoked them hy turns, began to 
move the boat ; some sliding it the entire length of the 
hall, others moving it backwards or forwards a few feet ; 
and others only an inch or two from its place. After these 
feats were ended, the four Lamas produced miniature pa- 
godas beautifully carved and fitted up, in which, as they 
claimed four genii or familiar spirits had taken up their 
residences. These toy houses being placed each on a stand, 
and appropriate invocations having summoned the invisible 
tenants, one of them commenced by swiftly carrying his 
pagoda up to the ceiling, where it remained like a fly ad- 
hering to its roof and pinnacles for upwards of twenty 
minutes, when it was as swiftly and suddenly replaced. 
At this token of spiritual power, the other Lamas redoubled 
their songs and incantations, calling upon their familiars 
by name, to put their successful rival to shame by their 
superior power. Moved as it would seem by these represent- 
ations, one of the invisibles slid his house along the floor, 
causing it to gyrate like a dancer ; still another respond- 
ed by jumping his house about in the air, mimicking the 



224 

well known movements of the grasshopper, after which 
creature the Ginn supposed to be operating was named. 
The fourth spirit who was called after the sacred Stork, 
caused his mansion to float majestically some six feet in 
the air ; there it became balanced, then fluttering like the 
wings of a bird it swooped round in a circle, and lighted 
back again upon its stand. 

At the conclusion of each feat the spectators clapped, 
shrieked and uttered yells of commendation, at which the 
pagodas were moved to bend with all the grace and aijlomh 
of a popular dancer receiving the plaudits of a fashionable 
assembly. During these performances, the Lamas stood 
apart, each chanting his prayer or invocation, whilst the 
space devoted to the exhibition was parted ofl" with a rope, 
making it impossible for any one to intervene with, or dis- 
turb the operations of the invisible performers. 

In the mountain regions of Burmah, reside a people 
called Karens, who dwell in small settlements, or villages, 
and live lives of singular temperance, purity and honesty. 
Their religious teachers are called Bokoos, or Prophets, and 
their office is to inculcate moral principles, predict the 
future, and interpret the will of the Great Spirit. Besides 
these are an inferior class called Wees, or Wizards, who 
cure the sick by spells and charms, fly through the air, 
bewitch cattle or exorcise the evil spirit out of them, be- 
sides performing, or professing to perform, other very won- 
derful things. 

A Christian Missionary, who had long been a resident 
amongst these simple mountaineers, assured the author, 
their faith in the presence and ministry of the spirits of 
their ancestors was immovable. They declared they saw 
them by night as well as day ; they conversed freely with 
them by signal knockings, voices, the ringing of bells and 
sweet singing. They performed works of good service and 



225 

warned their friends of danger^ death and sickness. One 
of the Christian Missionaries, writing to the New York 
Examiner^ a strictly religious paper, says : 

"The, Karens believe that the spirits of the dead are ever abroad on the earth. 
'Children and great grandchildren!' said the elders, 'the dead ai'e among us. 
Nothing separates us from them but a white veil. They are here, but we see them 
not.' Other genera of spiritual beings are supposed to dwell also on the earth; 
and a few gifted ones (mediums, in modern language,) have eyes to see into the 
spiritual world, and power to hold converse with particular spirits. One man told 
my assistant — he professed to believe in Christianity, but was not a member of the 
Church — that when going to Matah he saw on the way a company of evil spirits 
encamped in booths. The next year, when he passed the same way, he found they 
had built a village at their former encampment. They had a chief over them, and 
he had built himself a house, larger than the rest, precisely on the model of the 
teacher's without, but within, divided by seven white curtains into as many apart- 
ments. The whole village was encircled by a cheval clef rise of dead men's bones. 
At another time, he saw an evil spirit that had built a dwelling near the chapel at 
Matah, and was engaged with a company of dependents in planting pointed stakes 
of dead men's bones all around it. The man called out to the spirit : ' What do 
you mean by setting down so many stakes here f The spirit was silent, but he 
made his followers pull up a part of the stakes. 

"Another individual had a familiar spirit that he consulted, and wiih which he 
conversed; but on hearing the Gospel, he professed to become converted, and had 
no more communication with his spirit. It had left him, he said ; it spoke to him 
no more. After a protracted trial, I baptized him. I watched his case with much 
interest, and for several years he led an unimpeachable Christian life; but on los- 
ing his religious zeal, and disagreeing with some of the Church members, he removed 
to a distant village, where he could not attend the services of the Sabbath ; and it 
was soon after reported that he had communications with his familiar spirit again. 
I sent a native preacher to visit him. The man said he heard the voice which had 
conversed with him formerly, but it spoke very diflferently. Its language was ex- 
ceedingly pleasant to hear, and produced great brokenness of heart. It said : ' Love 
each other. Act righteously ; act uprightly,' with other exhortations such as he had 
Eeard from the teachers. An assistant was placed in the village near him, when 
the spirit left him again, and ever since he has maintained the character of a con- 
sistent Christian." 

In a series of articles written for the North China Herald^ 
by the celebrated eastern traveler, Dr. Macgowan, there 
occurs the following description of spirit writing — a mode, 
let it be remembered, by no means rare in the present day 
in China, Japan and Thibet. 

"The table is sprinkled with bran, flour or other powder, and two persons sit 
down at opposite sides, with their hands placed upon the table. A basket, of 
about eight inches diameter, such as is commonly used for washing rice, is now re- 



226 

versed, and laid down with its edges restiug upon tbe tips of one or two fingers of 
the media. This baslcet is to act as penholder; and a reed or style is fastened to 
the rim, or a chopstiek thrust through the interstices, with the point touching the 
powdered table. The ghost in the meantime has been duly invoked with religious 
ceremonies, and the spectators stand round waiting the result in awe-struck silence. 
The result is not uniform. Sometimes the spirit summoned is unable to write, 
sometimes he is mischievously inclined, and the pen — ftn* it always moves — will 
make either a few senseless flourishes on the table, or fashion sentences that are 
without meaning, or with a meaning that only misleads. This, however, is com- 
paratively rare. In general, the words traced are arranged in the best form 
of composition, and they communicate intelligence wholly unknown to the opera- 
tors. These operators are said to be not cmly unconscious, but unwilling partici- 
pators in the feat. Sometimes, by the exercise of a strong will, they are able to 
prevent the pencil from moving beyond the area it commands by its original posi- 
tion; but, in general, the fingers follow it in spite of themselves, till the whole 
table is covered with the ghostly message." 

Numerous other modes of consulting Spirits are in vogue 
amongst the Mongols. Where the Prophet, or Bokt, is 
good, pious or sincere, such an one works not for pay, and 
can scarcely be induced to accept of the presents that are 
tendered to him. A faithful devotee of this character 
having been sent for to cure a case of obsession from an 
evil spirit that had befallen a favorite servant of the 
author's, commenced by practicing on him with prayers, 
invocations, and the usual methods of exorcism. Finding 
that the demon, who especially manifested his influence in 
violent and dangerous attacks of epilepsy, resisted all 
the good man's efforts to dismiss him on pious grounds, this 
true Heathen (Christian, of course, we dare not call him ) 
undertook to fast for nine consecutive days, in order, as he 
said, that he might expel the • demon by the spirits of 
power which Fo would only accord to the self-sacrificing. 

For nine days this angel of mercy shut himself up in a 
remote chamber, subsisting on very small rations of bread, 
water and a little rice, carefully excluding the light of 
day, and spending nearly the whole time, except when 
sleeping from utter prostration, in long and endless repe- 
tition of prayers suitable for his purpose. On the ninth 
night after his voluntary incarceration, he came forth with 



227 

a stern countenance, a sparkling glance, erect form, and a 
voice which sounded strangely sweet and mellow, as he 
chanted his sonorous litanies to his God. The unfortunate 
patient happened to be in one of his worst crises as the 
self-devoted Physician made his appearance. Laying his 
hands on the man's head, with a voice of thunder he com- 
manded the demon to depart from him, and afflict him no 
more. Almost at the instant this rite commenced, the suf- 
ferer fell into a sound and tranquil slumber, from which 
he did not awake till twelve hours afterwards, when he 
arose refreshed and well, and never from that hour was 
troubled with his tormentor again. 

When will our Christian Physicians make similar sacri- 
fices, and produce similar results to their suffering victims 1 

The processes by which the most stupendous powers are 
excited have been already sufficiently dilated on. They 
vary not in any land, although in India they become tinc- 
tured with the sublime and metaphysical nature of a great 
and elevated nation of thinkers, whilst amongst the Mon- 
gols, the more mechanical, and even childlike characteristics 
of the people, lend to their Spiritism an air of supersti- 
tion, or blemish it with an appearance of legerdemain. 
Jugglery and sleight of hand are accomplishments pecu- 
liarly in accordance with the supple forms and imitative 
natures of these ingenious people, but none can remain 
long in their midst, or study their history and manners at- 
tentively, without perceiving that all the efforts of Chris- 
tians to quench the Spirit that is amongst them, and teach 
them to despise prophesy ings, have failed, and will fail ever- 
more. 

Spiritism ever has, ever will find its most fertile soil in 
the magical East. That land of Prophets, Saviours, 
Avatars, and Oriental Mystics — that land where matter 
bends and sways in the grasp of mind as a pigmy 



228 

writhes in the clutch of a giant ; a land where magic 
shoots up in every plant ; gleams forth in many col- 
ored fires from lustrous gems and glittering minerals ; 
where the stars tell their tales of eternity undimmed by 
the thick vaporous airs of equatorial lands, and the sun 
and moon imprint their magical meanings and solemn glo- 
ries in beams whose radiance goes direct to the inner con- 
sciousness of awe-struck worshippers. 

Let the magic of the Orient combine with the magnetic 
spontaneity of Western Spiritism, and we may have a 
religion whose foundations laid in science, and stretching 
away to the heavens in inspiration, will revolutionize the 
opinions of ages, and establish on earth the reign of the 
true Spiritual Kingdom. 



229 



SECTION XIII 



Magic in Egypt. 



Si strum — Virgin's Symbol. 




Celestial Mother. 



The immense prestige acquired by ancient Egypt for 
unapproachable excellence in every department of art and 
science, has invested the name and history of this land 
with a reputation for magical wisdom which raises expec- 
tation to the very highest pitch. A general impression 
seems to prevail moreover, that Egyptian monuments, in- 
comprehensible hieroglyphics, and buried crypts, conceal 
treasures of magical lore unknown to other nations and 
inaccessible to modern research. But assuming, as there 
is good reason to do, that Hindostan preceded Egypt in 
the dynastic order of ancient civilization, India surviving, 
although Egypt is no more, still preserves the originals of 
those splendid myths which became the under- tones of 
Egyptian sacerdotal science. And again : how many of 
the wisest and most philosophic minds of Greece visited 
the Egyptian priests, sat at their feet, and carried from 



230 

thence those systems of esoteric knowledge which became 
the corner-stones of Grecian mysteries 1 Those mysteries 
are such to us no longer, and we lose nothing of Egyptian 
wisdom because we find it filtered through Greek philoso- 
phy. Neither must we forget that the Ibunders of the 
Jewish nation were residents in Egypt during some por- 
tion at least of her most triumphant periods of civiliza- 
tion, and when this captive people were led forth by 
Moses, he carried with him as much of the far-famed wis- 
dom of the Egyptians as a well instructed Hierophant 
could obtain. 

Believing, as the best authenticated fragments of history 
would imply, that this same Moses claimed by the Jewish 
people as their own countryman was in reality an Egyp- 
tian priest, and an Adept of the famous school of Heliop- 
olis, we marvel not to find every item of Jewish religious 
worship stamped with Egyptian characteristics ; hence, 
too, we see little ground for the general belief that Egypt 
conserved within herself sacerdotal mysteries utterly un- 
known to cotemporary nations of antiquity, or that those 
elements of mystic wisdom for which she became so fa- 
mous, perished with her, and have been lost in the night of 
her antiquity. We believe that the veil of Isis concealed 
the mysteries of nature only from the vulgar who were 
unable to 'comprehend them, whilst the wisdom so her- 
metically sealed against all but the Initiates, was preserved 
in the sum of Grecian philosophy, which is itself by no 
means inaccessible to the student of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. 

As to the ornaments of which the Hebrews spoiled the 
Egyptians on the eve of their exodus, they are perfectly 
well understood to signify in Cabalistic language, the 
external rites and ceremonies of their religious worship. 

And JA. these are as fully revealed in the writings of the 

/ 



231 

Hebrew prophets and the Book of Revelations, as they 
were, when breathed into the ears of trembling Neophytes 
by the Hierophants of Egypt. Whilst therefore, we may 
admire, wonder, philosophize, and crown the land of the 
Nile with a mastery over arts and sciences unknown in any 
other country or time, whilst we gaze on her stupendous 
ruins with an awe and wonder that almost revives the be- 
lief that, ihe Sons of God did take them wives of the daugh- 
ters of men^ and in those days there ivere giants ; still, we 
cannot admit that the genius of great Egypt has perished, 
or that her understanding of nature's most occult laws 
lays buried in secret crypts or veiled hieroglyphics, forever 
remaining the unsolved problems of history. 

The indisputable parity between Hindoo and Egyptian 
sacerdotalism, justifies the belief of many eminent schol- 
ars, that the famous books of Hermes, so pretentiously 
heralded forth to all subsequent ages as the writing of 
Thoth, " the secretary of the Gods, " found their originals 
in the still existing four books of the Hindoo Vedas, and 
that those originals still exist, although the copies are said 
to have been lost, or only reproduced in fragments, trea- 
sured up as the most priceless gems of antiquity. The 
books of Hermes, like the Vedas, were divided into four 
parts, and subdivided into forty-two volumes. 

They treated of the same subjects, were carried in pro- 
cession in the same order, and by the same classes of 
Priests and Prophets. The treatises claimed from time to 
time to be reproduced as Hermetic wisdom, are direct para- 
phrases of Yedic writings, and the chief difference that ex- 
ists between them is the value which posterity attaches to 
that which is unattainable, and the indifference with which 
it regards the treasures it still possesses. There can be no 
question that the Jewish Ark of the Covenant found its 
model in the Egyptian Oracleship ; that the chest held so 



232 

sacred as the repository of nameless treasures carried 
about in the celebration of Bacchic rites, is paraphrased 
from a similar instrument used in the Osiric mysteries, 
whilst the resemblance between the solar and phallic 
emblems, crosses, obelisks, pyramids, and temple services 
of India and Egypt, are too obvious to escape the notice 
of the most superficial observer. The sequence of descent 
from the rites performed at Benares to those of Heliopo- 
lis, and from thence to Eleuesis, may be clearly traced ; in a 
word, whilst India may be regarded as the fatherland of 
myth and sacerdotal mystery, the entire East, including 
great Egypt, once splendid Babylonia, Palestine, Persia, 
Greece and Rome, all may be regarded as tributary na- 
tions, amongst whom the ages have parted the garments 
of the great Hindoo Messiah, the oft re-incarnated original 
of all the worshipped Sun-Gods of antiquity. We are 
aware that to many, these assertions will be deemed worthy 
only of an anonymous writer. '■'■ God understands !" And 
in that brief sentence is our recompense for all the misap- 
prehension and wrong that our words may suffer at the 
hands of humanity. 

The specialties of Egyptian magic were these. The 
Priests of Egypt, who were the sole conservators of all 
the religious, spiritual, and metaphysical knowledge of 
their land — were perfect Adepts in the two great spiritual 
forces now called Magnetism and Psychology. In Egypt 
as in India, the Priestly Caste included many grades, the 
highest of whom were the Prophets, a class who were ob- 
viously synonymous with the modern '' Spirit mediums," 
that is, persons in whom the gifts of the spirit were im- 
planted by nature, and that without processes of artistic 
culture. 

Amongst the lower orders were those wonder-workers 
who have obtained the name of magicians, and beneath 



233 

them again, and not necessarily included in the Priestly 
Hierarchy at all, were itinerant ascetics, who performed 
marvellous feats by reason of natural magical endowments, 
quickened by culture and abstinent practices, called Der- 
vishes, a class which finds an abundant representation 
throughout Egypt to this day. 

The Egyptian Priest, although an ascetic and rigid disci- 
plinarian, did not practice the life-long and abnormal self- 
mortifications endured by the Fakeers of India and some 
of the Lamas of China. They were highly educated scien- 
tific men, and learned by experience that more potential 
virtues existed in nature, than were to be eliminated from 
the human body in a starved and mutilated condition. They 
understood the nature of the loadstone, the virtues of min- 
eral and animal magnetism, which, together with the force 
of psychological impression, constituted a large portion of 
their theurgic practices. They perfectly understood the 
art of reading the inmost secrets of the Soul, of impress- 
ing the susceptible imagination by enchantment and fascin- 
ation, of sending their own spirits forth from the body as 
clairvoyants, under the action of powerful will — in fact, 
they were masters of the arts now known as Mesmerism, 
Clairvoyance, Electro-Biology, etc., etc. 

They also realized the virtues of magnets, gems, herbs, 
drugs and fumigations, and employed music to admirable 
effect. The sculptures, which so profusely adorn their 
temples, bear ample witness to their methods of theurgy 
and medical practice, for which their renown is immortal. 

Their sacerdotal system was both exoteric and esoteric, 
and divided into speculative philosophy and practical 
magic. 

The nature of their Theosophy we have already sketched 
out in earlier sections, treating of the astronomical reli- 
gion and the worship of the powers of nature, especially of 
the generative functions. 



234 

In these systems the whole arcana of Egyptian wis- 
dom was to be found. Their hierarchy of Gods, Goddesses, 
and intermediate spiritual agencies were derived from 
these systems of worship. All their grandest temples and 
priestly orders were devoted to the worship of the spirit- 
ual Sun, of whom the majestic god of day was but the 
external and physical type. 

Every star, planet and element was impersonated in some 
form; hence, they found that immense range of corres- 
pondences in nature which impressed a sacred idea on 
so many animals, birds, insects, reptiles and plants. 

The different powers and functions of Divinity that 
they imagined to be manifest in these objects, excited 
their reverential feelings, not the objects themselves. 

The sacred triangle, representative throughout the East, 
of the masculine principle of generation — the Yoni, circle, 
lozenge, or horizontal line, significant of the feminine 
principle, these, with crosses of every variety, indicative 
of the same generative functions, were esteemed by the 
Egyptians as most sacred symbols and will be found in- 
terspersed in all their sculptures. 

Isis, the maternal principle in nature, was very com- 
monly represented as a hawk-headed Deity, from the sa- 
credness attached to the idea that the hawk was the bird 
of the Sun, could ascend to its resplendent heights and 
gaze with undimmed eye into its blazing beams. The 
serpent was esteemed in Egypt as in other oriental lands, 
as an emblem alike of the Deific principles of good, 
namely : immortality, rejuvenescence, wisdom and health, 
and of death, terror, destruction and evil. 

The famous Anubis, whose emblem so often occurs in 
Egyptian sculptures, was derived from the Dog star, whose 
sign in the ascendant gave notice of the rising of the sacred 
river Nile, worshipped for its beneficence in irrigating the 
land. 



235 



The Dog star on this account was esteemed as the door- 
keeper of the house of life. He held the key of the portals 
of immortality. He was the invarible attendant of Osiris, 
the Sun-God and Judge of the Dead ; hence, the dog- 
headed Deity Anubis is so constantly seen in connection 
with sculptures of religious significance. 



« 




Anubis — J^Jffyptian Amulet. 



The sum of Egyptian Theogony is too well known to 
need further description here ; nor does it materially aifect 
the magical practices of this great people. We shall only 
therefore allude to or describe it inasmuch as it may 
throw light upon our special subject. 

The belief in Gods, Goddesses, good and evil spirits, the 
immortality of the human soul, and its transmigrations for 
purposes of probation and purification, the magical union 
between the heavens and the earth, the influences of the si- 
dereal heavens upon nature and human destiny, the fall of 
the spirit from a condition of innocence and bliss, and its 
ultimate restoration through long series of probationary 
states — the spiritual powers once enjoyed by the primeval 
man, now lost, or held latent, and in part only, restored by 
the practice of a divine life and initiation into the sacred 
mysteries ; these were the main ideas which underlaid 
Egyptian Theosophy, and connected its speculative science 
with its magical practices. 



236 

The history of the Sun-God, the worship of the powers 
of nature, the trials, discipline, probationary states, purifi- 
cation of the human soul and its ultimate restoration to 
Deity, were the doctrines taught through gorgeous dra- 
matic representations, in the famous mysteries of Isis and 
Osiris, to obtain a complete knowledge of which, many a 
valuable life was vainly sacrificed. The full sum of magic- 
al knowledge was limited to the Kings and Priests and 
the latter, according to their worthiness and different grades 
of rank, were instructed in all that appertained to the 
subject. The rite of circumcision was an absolute pre- 
requisite to initiation, hence foreigners, who having ar- 
rived at adult age when this rite might, as it often did, 
prove fatal, feared to encounter its hazards, and were sel- 
dom admitted to the mysteries. The rite of circumcision 
was symbolized by a circle, and the Egyptian priests wore 
a consecrated ring in memory of its performance. 

The ceremonies of initiation into these mysteries, 
are not as the would-be mystics of the present day imply, 
so entirely unknown to this generation. Those who really 
understand the esoteric meaning of Free Masonry and the 
Apocalypse, might discover therein a clue to the ancient 
mysteries, which few merely exoteric or superficial think- 
ers dream of. 

In the present limited treatise we can do no more than 
indicate the general tenor of their conduct. They were 
as follows : 

The Neophyte upon being presented to the attendant 
priest, after having undergone a preliminary series of puri- 
fications by bathing, fasting and prayer, was conducted 
before a masked tribunal, each member of which was ar- 
rayed in funeral robes. On every side of the vast hall 
of assemblage were emblems of death, and sculptures 
representing the judgment through which departed spirits 



237 

must pass, ere they were permitted to quit the earth, and 
enter upon the next stage of the soul's probation. 

The Neophyte's conductor wore the Dog's head mask of 
Anubis. The chief Judge, representing Osiris, was sur- 
rounded with his bench of Assessors after the fashion of an 
actual judgment, such as was held upon deceased persons ere 
their remains were consigned to the sepulchre. After the 
usual funeral rites were ended, the Neophyte was advised 
that he must now consider himself as dead to the world. All 
its pursuits, pleasures and attractions must be renounced 
forever, and an emhryotic life must be entered upon, pre- 
paratory to the expected new birth which he was to attain 
through a long series of painful, fatiguing and soul dis- 
tracting probations. 

As an evidence of the power his Judges exerted over him, 
the Neophyte was astonished, and in some instances hor- 
ror-struck to hear one after another — the Assessors starting 
forth as his accusers, each in turn rehearsing all the errors 
or shortcomings of • his past life, dragging to light even his 
secret desires, and the hidden things of his inmost nature, 
thus proving the extraordinary facility with which these 
great Adepts could clairvoyantly perceive all secrets, and 
read the characters of men. After this, long list of pen- 
ances and acts of severest discipline were imposed upon 
him. During this fearful trial the accused was not per- 
mitted the slightest opportunity of rebutting the charges 
brought against him, the strictest silence having been 
enjoined, all save the tremendous oaths and self-invoked 
penalties which he was called upon to pronounce, both on 
entering and quitting the sacred presence. 

From this point the Neophyte was required to abide in 
certain crypts sculptured over with animals, typical of the 
criminal propensities to which the soul is addicted, and 
then instructed in the snares and temptations to which the 



238 

passions were liable to seduce him. Thus he was taught 
how these passions might assail him, and in what manner 
to subdue them by penances, pra3^ers, and abstinence. 
Long hours spent in total darkness, processes of discipline, 
and even severe scourgings, dramatic scenes representative 
of passages in the Sun-God's history, alternations of light 
and darkness, pleasure and pain, fasting and feasting ; some 
scenes where the senses could be indulged, others where the 
means of gratification were presented, but the Initiate's 
strength of resistance was tested ; all these were but pre- 
liminary exercises through which the emaciated body aftd 
tortured soul was required to pass ere he could become a 
Priest. 

Frequent appearances before the awful Assessors of the 
Soul tested the actual progress he had made. 

Sometimes the Neophyte was placed amongst the Judges, 
and required to pronounce upon the hidden secrets of 
others' souls, thus calling forth his intuitional powers and 
strengthening his clairvoyant perceptions. Periods arrived 
when the severity of the discipline relaxed, and the tired 
spirit was magnetized to- the somnambulic or trance sleep by 
powerful Adepts, who, by whispering in his slumbering ear, 
caused him to behold scenes of beatific beauty and pro- 
phetically pointed out the glory of the heavens to which 
conquerors in these fearful scenes of trial would ultimately 
attain. 

Although gleams of hope, visions of beauty, and short, 
fitful periods of rest were thus permitted to the harassed 
spirits of aspirants for Priestly honors and magical knowl- 
edge, there were many who sank under the tremendous 
discipline, and passed to the higher life of the heavens ere 
its prototype was achieved on earth. Those who survived 
and triumphantly endured to the end, were, as it was 
said, " often seen to weep, but never to smile." Their youth 



239 

and all its blossoming fragrance was crushed out, and ever 
after they were stern, abstracted and isolated ascetics. 

One stage of the initiation — probably its happiest phase 
— consisted in scientific schooling. 

The Neophyte having been previously prepared in 
the elements of rudimentary learning, was instructed in 
astronomy, astrology, medicine, mineralogy, mathematics, 
geometry and such arts and sciences as were known to that 
age. Magnetism and psychology were methods not only 
practiced on himself, but every Initiate was required to 
practice it on others, and it was during these processes 
that all the latent powers of the individual were expanded 
into stupendous growths. If the Neophyte was found to 
be possessed of natural prophetic endowments, much of 
the rigor of his probation was abated, and he was rapidly 
elevated to thnt higher rank amongst the Priests assigned 
to Prophets, through whom the most transcendent spirit- 
ual powers were exhibited. Egyptian scholars have stated 
to the author that it was because Joseph, the Jew, was 
found to possess normally the spiritual powers which the 
Priests were compelled to acquire by art, that he was re- 
ceived into royal favor, and permitted to exercise such 
unlimited command ; also, they alleged that Moses, or, in 
Egyptian phraseology, Mises (signifying law-giver), was a 
Priest of Heliopolis, and being naturally endowed with 
wonderful mediumistic^ or spiritual gifts, he had excited the 
envy and jealousy of inferior orders of the Priesthood. A 
great feud existed, they said, between the Priests of differ- 
ent Temples and Moses, in his strong reliance on his in- 
vincible powers, revolted against the arbitrary authority 
of some of his oppressors, and hence was banished to the 
Lepers' quarter, a punishment so abhorrent, that, in revenge, 
he made his escape, joined the oppressed Israelitish cap- 
tives, and retaliated upon his tyrannical countrymen by 



240 

becoming the leader and deliverer of their unhappy bond- 
men. 

One of the chief duties of the Egyptian priesthood was 
the cure of the sick, and for this purpose the Initiates 
were instructed in the simple arts of medicine then known 
and the routine of magnetic manipulations. 

Loadstones were in constant use in temple service, and 
not a few of the most remarkable feats of magic were due 
to the knowledge of their use. 

In therapeutic rites they were frequently held in the 
hands, applied to different parts of the person, and enclosed 
in metal balls held by the patients and connected by 
chains and rings. Thus they were formed into a kind 
of rude battery, in which the moisture of the body was 
deemed efficient in producing powerful magnetism. Herbs, 
drugs, charms, amulets, and sacred sentences inscribed on 
scraps of papyrus, were often enclosed in metal balls, and 
applied to different portions of the body. Not unfrequently 
the unfortunate patients were treated to boluses made of 
sacred words and occult sentences. 

Sometimes their afflicted members were bound up with 
these talismanic papyri or their foreheads were sealed 
with them after the fashion of the Pharisaic phylacteries. 

Frequent bathings, the use of incense, spices, fragrant 
fumigations, herb drinks, simple medicaments, charms, 
amulets, spells, but above all, friction and magnetic ma- 
nipulations, were the means by which the Egyptians ac- 
quired a skill in the mastery of disease, which has never 
been excelled, perhaps never equalled in any age or country 
of the earth. One of their most potential means of cure 
was to induce the famous Temple sleep practiced at a' later 
day so successfully by the Greeks. In this condition — 
which was in tact somnambulic trance, procured through 
the magnetism of powerful Adepts — the sleepers were ad- 



241 

vised by whispers from the well-practiced watchers — to re- 
member when they awoke all that the Gods communicated 
to them. 

In this way dreams were procured or veritable visions 
seen, in which the patients received prescriptions, direc- 
tions, and prophetic revelations which the priests never 
failed to apply, deeming this the most direct and infallible 
method of communicating with the Gods and insuring a 
certain cure. 

We have said at the commencement of the second part 
of this volume, that Magnetism and Psychology were the 
two great columns that upheld the Temple of Spiritism. 

Never was this sublime truth better understood and ap- 
preciated than by the Priests of Egypt. Their manipu- 
lations, knowledge of the occult virtues of stones, plants, 
vapors, and magnets, their psychological powers cultivated 
up to the very verge where sanity ends and insanity be- 
gins, rendered them complete adepts in those noble scien- 
ces, of which we, in the nineteenth century, have but, the 
slightest glimpses, but of which few save the inspired Mes- 
mer have realized the full force since the ancient days of 
which we write. The chief process of initiation into the 
splendid mysteries depended on these arts. Appeals to the 
senses through delightful music, gorgeous scenery, dazzling 
lights, Cimmerian darkness, the horrors of impending death, 
the appearances of frightful forms and ferocious beasts, the 
compuision to ascend perilous heights, and descend into 
awful and interminable depths, — the effects of solitude, 
fasting, scourgings, prayers, the sudden demand to explain 
the hidden thoughts of others, or execute deeds of daring 
and hardihood, — all these terrible trials and soul disci- 
plines, were means employed to evoke^'psychological pow- 
ers of the mightiest kind. This was the'far-famed wisdom 
of the Egyptians, these their means of evoking all the latent 



242 

powers of the mind, the triumphs of the spirit, the cure of 
the sick, and the mastery of the occult forces of nature. 
It must be admitted that in no nation of antiquity did such 
severe discipUne and such intense intellectual culture pre- 
cede the initiatory rites of Priesthood. In India the only 
methods required, were the complete subjugation of the 
senses, and the annihilation of the passions, emotions, and 
attributes of matter ; but the Egyptians were not only 
taught to elevate the spirit above the realm of matter, they 
were instructed how to call its highest powers into exer- 
cise. Their intellects were cultured by the acquisition 
of useful knowledge. The highest achievements of art 
were set before them. Science was hunted doivn^ cap- 
tured, and forced to yield up its most occult revealments 
to the minds of these accomplished scholars. 

Far deeper meanings than the multiplication or divisions 
of numbers were discovered in mathematics. 

The Egyptians determined accurately the numbers which 
expressed men, Gods, the world and all things in the Uni- 
verse. The occult principles in geometry were dragged from 
their lurking places beneath lines, circles, and angles, and 
the true basic principles of world building were revealed. 

For thousands of years, the more than royal powers by 
which the Priests of Egypt ruled their land and held other 
nations tributaries to their mental achievements, continued 
in full force. 

For thousands of years this noble Caste retained their 
integrity, maintained their justly acquired reputation for 
wisdom, and held their position as the guides of Kings, 
the counsellors of warriors, the dictators of laws, the heal- 
ers of the sick, Prophets of the future, wonder-workers 
and interpreters of the will of Deity, and the ministra- 
tions of spirits. 

Always ascetic, silent, true and faithful ; their manners 



243 

were reserved and taciturn. They never smiled, nor par- 
took of the amenities of social life and friendly intercourse. 
Cleanly, active, pure and industrious ; often tilling their 
own lands, and taking the severest of exercise in sunshine 
and storm, they seemed to have completely ascended be- 
yond the pains, penalties or interests of the world in their 
own persons, and only to be concerned for the weal, woe, 
or elevation of their fellow creatures. A more exalted 
race of men never won the secrets of eternity from the 
Gods, or more completely took the kingdom of heaven by 
storm through their own sublime powers. 

Fascinating as are the researches connected with Egyp- 
tian magic, it would be useless to pursue them farther as 
regards their performance in ancient days. Those who 
pin their faith on Biblical accounts of the trial of magical 
power between Moses and the Egyptian magicians, per- 
ceiving in the recorded triumphs of the one, only the 
interference of their favorite God, and in the recorded fail- 
ures of the other, the displeasure of the same partial 
Deity, will arrive at a Y&cy poor and imperfect conception 
of the truths which underlie the science of Egyptian magic. 
To the Priest, or in fact to any well-informed inhabitant of 
Egypt at this very day, the sudden visitation of lice, 
frogs, red rain colored by fine sand to the appear- 
ance of blood, boils, blains, murrain on cattle, or 
even the rapid approach and disappearance of thick dark- 
ness, will be no new phenomena nor require the miraculous 
intervention of a God to induce them. They may occur 
any day and at all hours, and they only require an accu- 
rate knowledge of atmospheric changes, and the natural 
conditions of the land, to predict their appearance within 
any given space of time. 

Those who have ever witnessed, as they may do any day 
in the streets of Cairo, the marvels wrought by Egyptian 



244 

serpent charmers, those who have seen these itinerant 
performers wandering through the cities, twining hissing- 
snakes round their bare necks and arms, arranging them in 
dancing order and forming them into quadrille parties, — 
will not question that Moses and Aaron learnt quite enough 
of serpent proclivities during a very long residence in 
ancient Egypt, to contend successfully with serpent 
charmers a little inferior perhaps to themselves, — whilst 
for the story of the slaughter of the first born of Egypt ! — 
Pshaw ! the tale is too old and has been repeated too often 
to suit the purposes of rival sects, to be believed now of 
any nation in particular. One thing is certain. If the 
Pharaoh of the Jewish history did actually cause this 
hideous drama to be performed in his own land, he only 
paraphrased an old story long before imported into his 
nation by the Hindoos, on whose most ancient temple 
walls, sculptured representations of such a massacre may 
be found, dating back to periods long before the Jews were 
known as a people. The same remark applies to a similar 
tragedy said to- have been enacted at a still later date in 
Judea under the reign of King Herod. If the writers of 
the New Testament had taken the trouble to acquaint 
themselves with the true origin of this fable, or had had 
skill and learning enough to have traced it from Egypt 
into India, and from most ancient Indian sculptures into 
the realm of ancient mythical creations, it is doubtful if 
they would have permitted the same audacious fiction to 
have been twice repeated in the same volume. 

Premising that we shall continue to write of Osiric mys- 
teries in those of Eluesis ; Egyptian Astrology in its suc- 
cession from Chaldean Priests to Lilly and Dr. Dee ; of 
Egyptian enchantments and fascinations in the magnetic 
passes of Paracelsus and Mesmer, and of their Priests' 
clairvoyant perceptions of Heaven and earth, and all that 



245 

in them is, in the equally grand and lucid revelations of a 
modern Seer, whose name is all too little remembered and 
honored in his own country, but who will ere long be cited 
in evidence of the undying perpetuity of spiritual gifts, we 
take leave of a subject which the progress of ages and the 
divine economy of life assure us, we can never lose sight of 
in spirit, however the external form of its original may be 
buried beneath the superincumbent masses of ruin and de- 
cay. The distinguishing feature of Egyptian magic, was 
the union of occult with natural science, the connection of 
super-mundane with mundane Spiritism. The specialties 
of the Egyptian Magician were patience, devotion, and 
self-sacrifice, in the acquirement of occult knowledge^ — 
skill in its use, purity of life, fidelity to his calling, and 
educational culture upreared on the foundation of natural 
gifts. These are the elements by which a true medium 
becomes an accomplished magician and it was the 
Priests who rendered the name of Egypt famous throug:h 
all time, and their land the synonym of all that is wise in 
intellect, stupendous in art, elevated in ideality, and divine 
in spiritual science. 



246 



SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION XTTI. 



The Great Pyramid of Egypt — its possible Use and Object. 



MACROCOSMOS. / \ Dragorishead. 




Dragons tail. 



MICROCOSMOS. 



Man, the Microcosm of the Universe, 

Amongst the intellectual triumphs achieved by the 
Egyptian mind, must be reckoned the knowledge of As- 
tronomy, Astrology, Mathematics, Geometry, and a percep- 
tion of that most profound of all sciences, namely, the 
universal law of correspondence existing between the four 
branches of knowledge above named — Heaven, earth, man 
and all created things. 

Those who search Egyptian records to their full depths, 
and can learn above all other examples, to read perfectly 
the meaning of the Great Pyramid, the object in its erec- 
tion, the principles upon which it was built, and the use 
for which it was designed, will understand that man and 
his planet were fashioned in certain proportions represented 
alike in numbers, colors, sounds, forms and uses. Those 
who understand one department of natural science, possess 
a key which , unlocks the whole. Therefore this great 
Pyramid, built to illustrate the most perfect principles of 



247 

astronomy, astrology, mathematics and geometry, ought 
to possess an interest in the eyes of the profound scholar, 
which removes it forever from the common-place idea that 
this wonderful structure was erected merely as a huge 
royal sepulchre. The tomb of its founder it undoubted!}'" 
became ; for, in order to celebrate all the mysteries of life 
and being — the special object for which the great Pyramid ivas 
huilt — death must also take its place in the pageant, and 
the stupendous history of the Soul's progress through the 
section of eternity embraced by man's brief sojourn on 
this planet, could not be completed, unless the Angel of 
Death was assigned his niche in the splendid shrine. 

It would be impossible, without entering into a labored 
and abstract description first, of mathematical principles, 
and next, of geometrical measurements, disquisitions which 
we are assured would not be acceptable to at least four 
hundred and ninety of our five hundred readers, — to ex- 
plain the methods by which the Egyptians obviously 
arrived at the idea, that the entire order of the Universe 
was based on a geometrical figure, and included in a math- 
ematical sum, — also that in all departments of being, this 
figure would be found, and this sum would exist. In this 
volume, we can but vaguely hint at this sublime discover}, 
but whilst a vast mass of Egyptian vestiges disclose its 
prevalence, the great Pyramid is in itself a complete illus- 
tration of the idea. As regards popular theories concern- 
ing the design of this vast monument, we must premise 
our own statements of belief, by acknowledging that the 
number of wise and learned men who have devoted time, 
talent and indomitable effort to research in Egyptology, 
have justly earned the thanks of posterity, and the respect- 
ful appreciation of all to whom their opinions have been 
rendered. It is not with a view of combatting the theories 
advanced by eminent Egyptian discoverers then, that we 



248 

now write, but in view of the specialty of our i^ubjcct we 
believe we have an interest in this great Pyramid which 
has not been sufficiently well considered by others, and 
therefore we venture to j)i'opound the subjoined opinions 
concerning the uses for which this marvellous structure 
was designed. 

The most ancient Theosophists, amongst whom we 
include the Hindoos and Egyptians, taught that there 
existed throughout all being, that universal law of corres- 
pondence to which we have before alluded. 

All eastern nations attributed the origin of life, light, 
motion, and mind, to the action of the Spiritual Sun, sym- 
bolized by the physical orb of day. 

Character, destiny, physical form, and external appear- 
ances of all kinds, were determined principally hy astral as 
well as solar influences. 

Again it was argued, that laws stern and immutable, 
principles strict and unvarying, must underlie a scheme in 
which millions of worlds are the actors, yet the whole 
drama is conducted in the most unbroken system of har- 
mony and power. To arrive at any just idea of causation, 
it was believed that well defined mathematical quantities 
and geometrical proportions must be the underlying prin- 
ciples of this stupendous chain of being, all moving, living, 
and acting severally and singly in the most unbroken 
power and perfection. 

Every sound in the universe must conform to the har- 
monic rule, every shade of color must combine to pro- 
duce the totality of pure white light. Every creature 
must be a definite part, everythino; an organ belong- 
ing to the vast whole. Fanciful methods of interpret- 
ing this gigantic scheme by the laws of correspondence 
must ever remain fanciful, unless the key -stone was found 
which should combine all the separated parts of the 



249 

grand Temple of humanity by one mighty arch. This 
fair white stone would he neither oval nor square^ yet its fcrfec- 
tion would delight all eyes^ its heauty excite the ivonder of all 
heholders. In its mystic proportions would be found the 
square, the triangle, the circle and the line. In its com- 
binations would be expressed the truths of Astronomy, or 
the science of Astral worlds ; Astrology, or the science 
which connects the sum of worlds with the units, and 
teaches how the mass influences and disposes of the integral 
parts ; Mathematics, or the science which assigns to each 
world its number, to each component part its unit, and finds 
in the whole sum the just relations which each unit sus- 
tains to the other, and to the whole. Fourthly and last is the 
science of Geometry, by which the universe is mapped out 
in lines^ angles, squares and circles, in which all the com- 
ponent parts are arranged in just relations to each other, and 
united together in the grand circle of Infinity. 

Let not our readers regard these words as meaningless, 
nor deem them the mere rhapsody of a transcendental 
writer — 

The stone that the builders reject hecomes the head of the 
corner. 

For ages the great Pyramid has been this rejected stone. 

The world has not known it, and the builders of science 
have thrown it away amidst the rubbish of speculative pos- 
sibilities. 

Long has it waited for recognition, and we deem we do 
not claim too much for it when we prophesy it will yet be 
read and understood, and take its place as the key-stone 
in the lost art, which interprets the grand science of being 
as a Masonic Lodge. All creation, the Universe itself, is 
the Lodge of the Divine Mason, in which all the principles 
of science are found, from the smallest atom to an Astral 
system. All are arranged in the exact order of pure math- 



250 

ematics and geometry, and the great Pyramid was built 
to represent this subUme truth, to celebrate its mysteries, 
and perpetuate its meaning from generation to generation. 

Wq shall now present to the reader a few excerpts from 
various authoritative writers, whose opinions will strengthen 
the theory vaguely intimated above. 

Bishop Russell, of St. John's College, Oxford, England, 
— advancmg the very just and reasonable hypothesis that 
the great Pyramid of Cheops was not built by a descend- 
ant of the ancient Egyptian dynasty, but rather by one 
who determined to illustrate in its erection, ideas imported 
from a still older and more advanced civilization — says in 
his fine treatise on " Ancient Egyptian Monuments :" 

'•' It is mauifest at firdt sight that the dynast}'' of priuces to whom these stu- 
pendous works are ascribed were foreigners, and also that they professed a reli- 
gion hostile to the animal worship of the Egyptians, for it is recorded by the 
historian (Herodotus) with emphatic distinctness, that during the whole period of 
their domination, the temples were shut, sacrifices prohibited, and the people sub- 
jected to every species of calamity and oppression. Hence it follows that the date 
of the pyramids must synchronize with the epoch of the Shepherd Kings, those 
monarchs who were held as an abomination by the Egyptians, and who, we may 
confidently assert, occupied the throne of the Pharaohs during some part of the 
interval which elapsed between the birth of Abraham and the captivity of 
Joseph. The reasoning now advanced will receive additi(mal confirmation when 
we consider that buildings of the pyramidal order were not uncommon amongst 

the nations of the East At the present day there are pyramids in India, and 

more especiallj^ at Benares An edifice of the same kind has Ijeeu observed 

at Meduu, in Egypt, constructed in different stories or platforms, diminishing in 
size as they rise in height until they terminate in a point the exact pattern of which 
was supplied by the followers of Buddha in the plan of their ancient pyramids, as 
these have been described by European travellers, on the banks of the Ganges and 
the Indus." 

The author of this work has himself visited and exam- 
ined these Hindoo structures, taking part in the rites of 
initiation still practiced in their ancient crypts, and that 
after a fashion which clearly indicates that the great Pyra- 
mid of Cheops was designed upon the same model and for 
the same purpose. Bishop Russell adds : 

'• Such, too, is understood to have been tin- lorni of the Tower of Babel, the 



251 



object of which may have been to celebrate the mysteries of Sabaism (the astro- 
nomical religion), the purest superstition of the untaught niind. Mr. Wilforrl in- 
forms us that on his describing the great Pyramid to several very learned Bramins, 
they declared it at once to have been a Temple, and one of them asked if it had 
not a communication with the river Mle. When answered that such a passage 




The Tower of Babel. 

was said to have existed, and that a well was to be seen to this day, they unani- 
mously agreed that it was a place appropriated to the worship of Padnia Devi, and 
that the supposed tomb was a trough, which, on certain festivals, her priests used 
to fill with water and the sacred lotus flowers. 

"The most probable opinion respecting the object of this vast edifice is, that it 
combines the double use of the sepulchre and the temple, nothing being more 
common in all nations than to bury distinguished personages in places consecrated 
to the rites of worship. If Cheops intended it only for his tomb, what occasion was 
there for the well at the bottom, the lower chamber with a large niche in its 
eastern wall, the long, narrow cavities in the sides of the large upper room, en- 
crusted all over with the finest marble, or for the ante-chambers and lofty gallery 
with benches on each side that introduce us into it"? As the whole of Egyptian 
Theology was clothed in mysterious emblems and figures, it seems reasonable to 
suppose that all these turnings, apartments and secrets in architecture were in- 
tended for some nobler purpose, for the catacombs are plain, vaulted chambers 
hewn out of the natural rock — aud that the Deity rather, lohich loas typified in the 
outward form of this pile, was tohe worshipped xoithin." 

Always desirous of presenting the views of such writ- 
ers as may prove more acceptable to our readers as authoi'- 
itfj than ourselves, we propose to render our own opinion on 
this recondite subject in another quotation from a curious 
little work put forth by an erudite American gentleman 
by the name of Stewart, on the subject of Solar worship. 
This author says : 

" It is important not to lose sight of the fact, that formerly the history of the 
ht'dveus, and particularly oftlie sun, was written under the form of the history of 
men, and that the people almost universally received it as such, and looked upon 
the hero as a man. The tomhs of the Gods were shown, as if they had really existed ; 
feasts were celebrated, the object of which seemed to be to renew every year, the 



252 

grief whic'li liad beeu occasioued by their loss. Such was the tomb of Osiris, cov- 
ered under those enormous masses known by the name of the Pyramids, which the 
Egyptians raised to the star which gives us light. One of these has its four sides 
facing the cardinal points of the world. Each of these fronts is one hundred and 
ten fathoms wide at the base, and the four form as many equilateral triangles. The 
perpendicular height is seventy-seven fathoms, according to the measurement 
given by Ohazelles, of the Academy of Sciences. It results from these dimensions, 
and the latitude under which this pyramid is erected, that fourteen days before the 
Spring equinox, the precise period at which the Persians celebrated the revival 0/ 
nature, the sun would cease to east a shade at mid-day, and would not again 
cast it until fourteen days after the autumnal equinox. Then the day, or the sun, 
would be found in the parallel or circle of Southern declension, which answers to 
5 deg. 15 minutes; this would happen twice a year — once before the spring, and 
once after the fall equinox. The sun would then appear ex«c<?y at mid-daij upon 
the summit of this pyramid ; then his majestic disk would appear for some mo- 
ments, placed upon this immense pedestal, and seem to resiuponit, while his wor- 
shippers, (m their knees at its base, extending their veiw along the inclined plane 
of the northern front, would contemplate the great Osiris — as well when he de- 
scended into the darkness of the tomb, as when he arose triumphant. The same 
might be said of the full moon of the equinoxes when it takes place in this paral- 
lel." 

" It would seem that the Egyptians, always grand in their conceptions, had ex- 
ecuted a project (the boldest that was ever imagined) of giving a pedestal to the 
sun and moon, or to Osiris and Isis ; at mid-day for one, and at midnight for the 
other, when they arrived in that part of the heavens near to which passes the line 
which separates the northern from the southern hemisphere; the empire of good 
from that of evil; the region of light from that of darkness. They wished that the 
shade should disappear from all the fronts of the pyramid at mid-day, during the 
whole time that the sun sojourned in the luminous hemisphere; and that the 
northern front should be again covered with shade when night began to attain her 
supremacy in our hemisphere — that is, at the moment when Osiris descended into 
hell. The tomb of Osiris was covered with shade nearly six months, after which 
light surrounded it entirely at midday, as soon as he, returning from hell, regained 
his empire in passing into the luminous hemisphere. Then he had returned to 
Isis, and to the G-od of Spring, Orus, who had at length conquered the genius ot 
darkness and winter. What a sublime idea !" 

That this great Pyramid was built by those who trans- 
cended the ancient Egyptians in sacerdotal arts, sublimity 
of conception, and the knowledge of the exact sciences, 
none can question. That it was designed for a Temple as 
well as a tomb, all true Initiates of Oriental Mysticism 
will affirm. Its external form is the purest example of 
mathematical rule and geometrical proportion in the world. 
The perfect square is obtained at its base ; perfect trian- 
gles at each corner, and a perfect circle when it becomes, as 



^53 

it was designed to be, the semi-annual pedestal of the Sun 
and Moon. 

According to the hypothesis of Prof Piazza Smythe, the 
object of this great Pyramid was to convert it into a gran- 
ary in time of famine, and a storehouse for the preserva- 
tion of treasures in the event of a general inundation, or 
other national calamity. Others imagine it to have been 
simply designed as the tomb of its founder, Cheops, and a 
monument to his memory. These and other opinions con- 
cerning its destined uses are supported with more or less 
plausibility, Prof Smythe, the chief supporter of the first 
named hypothesis, triumphantly pointing to his wonder- 
fully adjusted scales of measurement, and actually proving 
— at least to his oivn satisfaction — that the huge porphyritic 
coffer, found in the great upper chamber, lidless, open, 
empty, was designed for an universal standard of measure- 
ment, and that its division into certain nicely calculated 
parts, will coincide with the standard of dry measure now 
in common use throughout Europe and America ! A bet- 
ter understanding of the profound heights of metaphysi- 
cal speculation in which the Oriental mind eraploj^ed itself 
would have shown the learned Edinburgh Professor that this 
vast edifice was designed as a sky and earth meter, not a 
mere standard by which farmers and market women could 
adjust their bargains during centuries after the great founder 
had ascended to his place of recompense and rest, and that 
the huge problem of scientific discoverers, the mystic, lid- 
less, wholly unornamented, uninscribed coffer, in the midst 
of the vast unornamented and uninscribed chamber, was not 
intended as a model for all generations of succeeding corn 
and seedsmen, but as a sarcophagus for living men, for those 
Initiates who were there taught the solemn problems of 
life and death, and through the instrumentality of that 
very coffer attained to that glorious birth of the Spirit — 



254 

that second birth so significantly described by the great 
Hierophant of Nazareth when he answered those who 
came to inquire of him by night, .saying : '' Except a man 
he horn again he cannot see llie kingdom of GodP 

Except a man he horn of water and of the Spirit^ he cannot 
enter the kingdom of God. 

That tvhich is horn of the flesh is flesh., and that which is 
horn of the spirit is. spirit. 

Marvel not that I said unto thee //e must he Ijorn again. . . 

Nicodemus answered and said unto him., — How can these 
things he ? 

Jesus ansivered and said unto him., Art thou a Master in Is- 
rael and hioiuest not these things ? 

We might ask the same question of the learned Profes- 
sors, but the succession of ideas revealing the sublime meta- 
physics of being, transmitted from God through nature to 
his first Priests, the ancient Priests of the Aryan tribes, 
from them to the Hindoos, on to the Egyptians, forward 
through Moses to the Hebrews, the " Masters in Israel," and 
chief of them all, to the Essenes, of whom Jesus of Naza- 
reth was the best type, — these items of pure metaphysics, 
form no part of the learning of great Edinburgh Professors, 
and so the huge sarcophagus of the mighty Temple of 
Cheops, in which Initiates were designed to be typically 
horn again of water and of the Spirit., became a corn measurer 
in the eyes of the great British mathematician ! When 
an angel spoivc at the baptism of Jesus, the by-standers 
said, " it thundered.'''' — Such by-standers are not all dead 
yet. 

The time was when Egypt, the young untutored child of 
the desert, was not the Queen of arts and sciences, who 
sat enthroned over the intellectual world. Then did she 
become the prey of the spoiler. She was invaded and con- 
quered by the '' Pali" — Shepherd Kings or " Hyksos," 



255 

who, according to Manetho, overran the land, put the m- 
habitants to chains and tributary service, and became for 
awhile the Rulers of Egypt. What this country was be- 
fore the advent of these Shepherd Kings we can hardly 
conjecture, but after their rule, every monument, pyramid, 
and inscription, bore the stamp of Oriental ideality. It 
needs not that we particularize the details of these revo- 
lutionary changes ; we only allude to them, to account for 
the wonderful parity which exists between the religious 
opinions which we have enlarged upon in our descriptions 
of Hindoo worship, and those which reappear in Egyptian 
Theogony. Let us, as Solomon says, consider the conclu- 
sion of the whole matter, Cheops, a monarch of the in- 
vading line, caused a Temple to be erected in conformance 
with those strict rules of science, revealed to the ancient 
Hindoo metaphysicians, as the mode in tvhich God worked. 

The external of this gorgeous edifice was the symbolism 
of the world ; built upon the purest principles of Astrono- 
my, Astrology, Mathematics and Geometry. 

The interior was a Temple designed to teach and illus-, 
trate those sciences, and as the soul of man was regarded 
as an emanation direct from Deity, so its progress through 
matter — its fall from spiritual purity to an alliance with 
gross matter — its transmigration through various forms for 
the purposes of probation and purification, its ultimate 
birth into manhood and — provided the animal prevailed in 
its nature — its descent again into animal forms, and pro- 
vided the spiritual prevailed, its new birth and final trans- 
formation into a pure spiritual existence ; these were the 
stages of the gorgeous drama which the Temples were 
built to display, and chiefest of all was the great Temple 
of Cheops, which by profound and correct astronomical 
calculations, the founders designed should be the physical 
centre of the world, so they also metaphysically designed 



256 

it to be the great centre of all those sublime teachings 
which, in the form of mysteries too prolbund for the vulgar 
mind, they, the ancients, organized into Free Masonry. 

The base of this great building occupies something over 
13 acres of land. Its base line is 764 feet, and its vertical 
height 480. Descriptions of its bewildering passages, 
noble halls, chambers, galleries, sunken shafts, ending in 
secret crypts, blocked up by fallen stones and accu- 
mulations of sand, the descending passages invariably 
found leading to all sepulchral edifices, the ascending gal- 
leries and noble chambers wliich forbid the idea of its being 
a monument of death alone, its empty, lidless sarcophagus 
without any signs of attachment, whereby a lid could ever 
have been used, and the perfect absence in the upper cham- 
bers of all inscriptions which could declare the secrets of 
the rites performed within it, all speak in trumpet tones to 
the true and instructed masters in Israel^ of the design and 
scope of this wonderful building and its actual nature as a 
veritable Lodge of Ancient Free Masonry. 

We must add, that this dumb but most eloquent struc- 
ture is full of revelation to the true mystic. Its base is 
the perfect square which symbolizes in its four corners 
the sacred number 4, the union of the masculine and femi- 
nine principles. Its corners are the perfect triangle, the 
symbol so esteemed throughout the East as the masculine 
emblem, and significant of the mystic number 3. Its apex 
represents the Phallus, the sign ever deemed throughout 
the East the symbol of Deity, or the creative principle. 
The descent of the sun upon its apex at the two solemn 
epochs of the year, which signify life eternal, and death 
through the ever-constant adverse principle of evil, com- 
plete the series of allegorical ideas which this building was 
designed to celebrate. 

The different stages of the mysteries celebrated within 



257 

its crypts, tortuous passages, large halls and grand cham- 
bers, would not now avail to relate, even if we did not feel 
bound in honorable promise to suppress them. But their 
spirit belongs to humanity. They are found in the grand law 
of universal correspondence — a correspondence which makes 
Geometry the plan, and Mathematics the sum of all things 
that be ; that knits up color and sound, form and function, 
matter and spirit, heaven and earth, man and his Creator, 
each planet with its solar system, and the solar system with 
the universe, in one stupendous scheme of harmony — har- 
mony in which, a number, a sign, a color, a tone, or a word 
will express the whole. The number is one — the color 
WHITE — the sound, the pure octave — the word, all the 
synonyms which relate to God — the sciences. Astronomy, 
Astrology, Matiiematics, Geometry — the parts, Infinity, 
the sum, Eternity. Fragments of this sublime philosophy 
have been obtained by all the capable minds who resorted 
to the Egyptian Priests for information concerning their 
occult wisdom. Parts of it are to be found in all the dif- 
ferent philosophical systems of the Greeks and Romans, the 
Cabalism of the Jews, the mysticism of the mediaeval sects 
called Alchemists and Rosicrucians ; the fullness of An- 
cient Masonry, and the effete exoteric puerilities of modern 
Free Masonry ; the figure which typifies the perfection 
of this system in geometrical proportion is often passed by 
unnoticed in Egyptian monuments. 

71ie ivord is spoken with cold, lifeless, unsanctified lips, 
and has no effect on the unresponsive air. 

The magnificent unison that strikes from the lowest to 
the highest depths, including all the tones of Creation, 
sounds in vain in the harmony of choiring worlds upon 
ears that are dulled to every tone save the clink of money, 
the emblem of all materialism ; but amidst this eclipse 
of the true faith — this total darkness on the subject of the 



258 

scientific religion, and the religion of science, the grand 
old Pyramid of Cheops stands grimly mute — eloquently 
speechless, waiting for the hour when the builders of the 
new Temple of the divine humanity, missing the key- 
stone of the arch, which is neither oblong nor square^ shall 
search amid the rubbish of antiquity, and finding the 
stone that the builders rejected, place it as the key- 
stone in the arch by which the heavens overshadow the 
earth, and constitute the universe the Divine Lodge of 
the Master-Builder, God. 

There is yet another fragment of metaphysical history 
to be given ere we feel free to close this section. 

The Smi-God to whose honor this temple was dedicated, 
once in every year dies, and descends into the deepest por- 
tions of the earth. 

So does death linger in the lowest crypts, in the ashes of 
the earthly founder of the building. The intricate pas- 
sages, the narrow, rough and rugged paths, and the final 
openings into the great Temple Hall, were only so many 
practical types of the Soul's progress to that of the Sun-God 
through the constellated Zodiac of the skies. In the great 
Hall to which he at length arrives, the Neophyte was in- 
structed in the last great lesson of life and death. Slain 
by violence and laid in the coffer, with him is destroyed the 
Masterh word on which the building of the Great Temple 
depends. 

The aroma of death directs the searchers to the spot 
where he lays. 

On the five points of human fellowship, he is raised to 
life again, and elevated to the still higher degree of life 
eternal. Bor!^ Again ! — now he becomes the key-stone, 
and is placed in the royal arch which completes the build- 
ing of the Divine Temple. There the Sun of Heaven sits 
triumphant on the apex of the Pyramid — the Pyramid 
which in itself is a sgmhbl of generative life. 



259 

This temple was the work of those who lived 5,000 years 
ago. Its date is no uncertainty. Names and inscriptions 
have been found which justify this opinion inferred both 
by Manetho and Herodotus. The rites celebrated in this 
grand old fane at least 2,500 years ago, are not quite for- 
gotten yet, nor are the principles upon which they were 
practiced, blotted out. The moving Phantasmagoria which 
constituted the glory of ancient Egypt has disappeared 
from the scene, perhaps never again to be replaced, cer- 
tainly never by a band of actors as sublimely perfect in the 
highest realms of life's melodramatic art as those who 
figured in the great Epic of antique Egypt's palmy splen- 
dors. 

To-day tribes of wandering Arabs scarcely banded to- 
gether, not ruled by some poor Sheik, who will perform 
magic for the value of a few English shillings, or a set ol 
Dervishes who will dance, whirl, howl, or throw themselves 
into epileptic trances, for a few dollars, represent the chief 
of what was once so wise, powerful, far-seeing, and sublime, 
in Egyptian Spiritism. 

Notwithstanding this picture of external degradation, 
the spirit of ancient Egypt, filtered through the epics of 
classic Greece and the memories of stately Rome, still lives, 
still animates the earnest student and the patient scholar 
to fresh research in the letter of the dead Orient, and fresh 
discovery in the hidden meaning of its immortal Soul. 
The day will come when the magic of the ancients will be 
the Science of the moderns, and in that morning light of 
revelation the Great Pyramid of Cheops will be known for 
what it really is, the alphabet which spells out the signifi- 
cation of the Divine Drama of existence. 



260 



SECTION XIV. 

Spiritism and Magic amongst the Jews. 

Antiquity of the Jews disijuted.. — Abraham, Moses, the 
Priests and Prophets. — The Cahala-Bihle. — Infusion of 
Chaldean and Persian Ideas into the Hebrew writ- 
ings. — Personality of Jesus. — Superior claims of the 
Bihle to other loritings. 

The Hindoos and Jews are almost the only ancient Ori- 
ental nations who have left any written records of their 
religious belief. 

The Chaldeans and Egyptians, although disputing the 
palm of antiquity with India, have bequeathed to posterity 
only monumental vestiges of their elaborate systems of 
worship, and the mysterious means by which they pene- 
trated into the secrets of spiritual existence. 

The sacred writings of the Hebrews have been so faith- 
liilly preserved, and they contain such a vast repertoire of 
spiritualistic events, that they would have furnished an 
invaluable array of testimony on this subject, had not the 
excessive egotism of Jewish historians, and the unques- 
tioning veneration with which all their statements were 
received by succeeding generations, intervened to throw 
doubts upon the credibility of much that they affirm. 

It is now fully proved, that the enormous claims set up 
by the Jews themselves for the antiquity of their Scrip- 
tures, and the originality of many of the events related 
in them, are totally at variance with cotemporaneous his- 
tory. 

The allegations of Hellenistic Jews also, that certain 
portions of Greek philosophy were derived from Hebrew 



261 

writings, have been proved to be false ; in fact, whilst can- 
did students of the Bible will find in it an excellent tran- 
script of the manners, customs, traditions and Spiritism of 
the Eastern nations generally, they will discover only a 
meagre account of the actual characteristics of the Jewish 
people, save in respect to their personal adventures, and 
their constant tendency to imitate the vices and idolatries 
of other nations. 

Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, was a Chal- 
dean by birth, and though he protested against the idola- 
trous practices of his own land, and voluntarily quitted it, 
to found a purer and more monotheistic form of worship, 
still he impressed upon his descendants many ideas, derived 
from the astronomical religion of the Chaldeans, especially 
their reverence for fire, the custom of rearing altars to 
Deity of upright stones, their system of sacrificial offer- 
ings and direct com amnion with Tutelary Spirits, believed 
to have special charge over nations and peoples. 

Josephus affirms that Abraham went into Egypt, and 
there became an auditor of the Priests, who greatly ad- 
mired him for his "wisdom. It was probably from Egypt 
that Abraham derived his ideas of the sacredness of cir- 
cumcision, a rite which he enjoined as the most important 
of all religious obligations upon his posterity. His imme- 
diate descendants were only herdsmen, and far less in- 
structed than himself, yet they openly communed with 
spiritual beings, and received counsel and direction through 
dreams and visions, i 

Making all due allowance for the necessity of interpret- 
ing much of the Bible by cabalistic methods, that is to 
say, by deeming the words written, designed to veil rather 
than to express their meaning, we must either treat the 
existence of the Jews and their whole history as mythical, 
or allow that they form one of the most remarkable speci- 



262 

mens of Theocratic government the world has ever known. 

This people migrated and settled, directed their wander- 
ings, even transacted their business, and governed their 
Tribes, under the direction of Angels and the inspiration 
received through dreams, visions or oracular communica- 
tions. With the Jewish Scriptures so familiarly known 
to every child in Christendom, it would be useless to re- 
view its Spiritism in detail ; it is enough to say then, that 
every page is a record of super-mundane signs, tokens, 
open intercourse with spiritual beings, and all those phases 
so familiarly known in the nineteenth century as " Spirit- 
ualism," 

To judge of the origin and characteristics of Jewish 
Spiritism, it must be remembered that the people had been 
ruled over in turn by the Kings of Mesopotamia, Moab, 
Midian, Ammon, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Syria, 
Macedonia and Rome. 

The various forms of worship practiced in each of these 
nations, left their impress on Jewish Theogony, rendering- 
it far more a transcript of the beliefs then prevailing 
throughout the East, than a concrete System of any one 
nation's religion. 

From the Jewish Scriptures may be gathered much in- 
formation concerning those Priestly rites and sacerdotal 
ceremonies borrowed from Egypt, but of which that land 
preserves no written descriptions. The early chronicles of 
the Hebrews may be regarded as a complete representa- 
tion of Egyptian Theosophy, the Jehovah being one of the 
Eloihim, or Tutelary Deities of Egypt, their Tabernacle, 
Ark, Priestly order, rites, ceremonials and sacred garments 
being all exact copies from Egyptian models. 

During the prophetic dispensation, an interregnum oc- 
curs, marked by the struggle between a few inspired men 
to restore a pure form of Monotheistic worship, and the 



263 

idolatrous tendencies of the people to imitate their neigh- 
bors, who throughout Arabia and Syria, practiced the low- 
est forms of Solar and Sex worship. The Babylonish 
captivity leaving its strong admixture of Chaldean ideas, 
follows, after which and during the Roman rule arises that 
sublime form of pure religion, so thoroughly identical with 
the doctrines of the Essenes, inaugurated by Jesus of 
Nazareth. 

Under this inspired and holy Teacher, the Spiritism of 
his wonderful works became united to the Spiritualism of 
his Divine life and doctrines, and so continued through the 
apostolic dispensation of his immediate followers, although 
it became modified by the commanding intellect of Paul, 
who, having been brought up in the sect of Pharisees, and 
instructed in the subtleties of Gnosticism, introduced into 
his otherwise kindly yet exalted Christianity, much of that 
ancient mysticism which distinguished the schools in which 
he had been educated. 

Amongst the Jews, as with all other nations of. antiquity, 
the line of demarcation was strongly drawn between the 
Priests and the Prophets. Abraham and his descendants 
were evidently what would now be termed "Spirit Mediums," 
for their converse with spirits, their dreams, trances and 
visions are all described as of purely natural occurrence, 
yet they added to these gifts the practices of magic by 
building altars for burnt offerings and other sacrificial 
rites. 

Moses also was both Prophet and Priest. His extra- 
ordinary spiritual endowments might have been greatly 
exaggerated by the egotistical style employed through- 
out the Hebrew Scriptures, still the fact of his high 
inspiration and open communion with the Tutelary Deity 
Jehovah, can hardly be doubted, without questioning the 
fact of his agency in the Jewish history altogether. 



264 

This admitted, his power as a magician affords a stupen- 
dous picture of that esoteric wisdom, in which the Egyp- 
tian Priesthood were so Avell versed. His contest with 
the Magians of Egypt, his seclusion amidst the awful 
mysteries of Sinai, his establishment of Priestly laws, or- 
dinances and rites; in a word, the whole order of his won- 
derful and sublime history, gives a strange insight into the 
almost God-like powers with which a Hierophant of the 
most ancient mysteries becomes endowed. Another, though 
a far inferior example of the dual powers of Prophet and 
Magian, is described in the person of Baalam, who, 
though an enchanter and diviner, one who was evidently 
tamiliar with the magical arts then so common in the 
East, who was hired both to curse and bless, oi- hi/ strony 
psijchological ivill to procure good or evil fortune for pay, 
was yet in modern phrase a Spirit Medium, subject to 
trance and vision, and when under the Divine Spiritual 
afflatus, one who was compelled to speak as the spirit gave 
him utterance, though gold and silver were offered as in- 
ducements to prophesy to a contrary effect. 

The immense importance attached to psychological 
power is manifested in numerous instances throughout the 
pages of the Bible. The curse and blessing so solemnl}- 
pronounced by Moses on Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, 
were deemed as immutably prophetic as if they had been 
the utterances of the Deity in person. Curses and bless- 
ings were considered so potent in effect, that the trade of 
Baalam was commonly practiced, and Prophets were either 
solicited or hired to pronounce words of ban or blessing 
on enemies or friends, as was most desired. In the days of 
Samuel, schools of the Prophets were established, it being 
thought that 3^oung persons by mere association with those 
holy men, and by ministering to them as servitors, might 
partake of theii" Divine gift, and receive of their spirit by 



265 

contact, or the laying on of their hands. It was not con- 
sidered derogatory in the days of Samuel, for Prophets to 
exercise their gifts of Seership for the recovery of lost 
property, and the custom of resorting to them for this pur- 
pose was considered just as legitimate as that of seeking 
oracular responses " from the Lord" through Urim and 
Thummim. On the Priestly modes of obtaining these re- 
sponses, we shall speak in the concluding portion of this 
section ; it is proper to notice however, that whilst pro- 
phetic powers were evidently conferred upon certain indi- 
viduals by natural endowment, and not by study or art, 
the Prophets of Israel led exceptional and devoted lives. 
They often retired into wildernesses apart from the haunts 
of men ; they observed long fasts, and subjected them- 
selves to frequent penances, the latter more generally for 
the sins of others than themselves. They wore rough 
garments, most commonly a mantle composed of the skins 
of animals. Some amongst them were accustomed to 
wound their hands and rend their garments in prophetic 
frenzy. They spent much time in prayer, and were pas- 
sionately addicted to the practice of music. Many indica- 
tions appear throughout the Jewish Bible of the constant 
resort which the Prophets made to music, as a means of 
stimulating the prophetic afflatus, especially in the exor- 
cism of evil spirits, and the rites of Temple worship. 

There are many commentators on the Hebrew sacred 
writings who do not hesitate to affirm that such person- 
ages as Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and Jesus never existed, I 1 1 
whilst Samson has been proved to be a mythical repre- 1 i : 
sentation of the Greek Hercules, and Jeptha a paraphrase] j / 
of the Greek Agamemnon. / ji 

The audacious transposition of ancient Heroes from ' 1 
their own lands into that of Judea by Jewish historians, 
and the bold plagiarisms of other nations' histories to sus- 



266 

tain their own, does not alter the fact that at certain 
epochs of time, great and providential characters must have 
flourished and acted something of the parts set down for 
them. Moses, as we have already alleged, we believe to 
have been an Egyptian Priest — an opinion which is sus- 
tained by Manetho, a Greek historian who claims to have 
authentic knowledge on this subject. Still the part sus- 
tained by this remarkable man in the Jewish Exodus from 
Egypt, the enunciation of his noble code of laws, his estab- 
lishment of the priestly ordinances, and the extraordina- 
ry spiritual influences which attended him, and enabled 
him to bring the Jews into direct and constant communion 
with their Tutelary Deity, are integral portions of his- 
tory which cannot be blotted out. Elijah, from his name 
signifying one of the houses of the sun, like his follower 
Elisha, has sometimes been deemed a mythical personage, 
a mere type of the Sun-God. Even if the personality of 
both these exalted characters were to be resolved into 
allegory, it does not alter the fact that at certain periods of 
Jewish history, many wise, powerful, and spiritually en- 
dowed men arose, under whose scathing rebukes and sub- 
lime inspirations, the rebellious people were won back to 
the worship of one God, and the wise standards of govern- 
ment prescribed by Moses. 

In the advent of Jesus of Nazareth a revolutionary 
change in Jewish history occurs, which could not have been 
efiected without the intervention of just such a pure, high 
and holy teacher as he is represented to have been. 
[ From the descriptions given by Philo and other cotem- 
porary historians of the Essenes, a sect of pure and holy 
men who arose about one hundred years before the advent 
of Jesus of Nazareth, it has often been supposed that he 
was one of their number. The doctrines, manners and 
customs of this sect conformed in almost every particular 



267 

to those of Jesus and his Disciples. Even the famous Ser- 
mon on the Mount becomes little else than a transcript of 
Essenian aphorisms, when the two are carefully compared. 
The same extraordinary similarity of doctrine and practice 
has been traced between this sect and that of the Sage 
Pythagoras, and the universality of the idea which marks 
the great and inspired lives of the Jewish and Samian 
Teachers, naturally suggests that each of them drew their 
opinions from the same Essenian model. 

As to the identity of the Jewish Christ with the popular 
myth of the Eastern San-God — ^we have no opinion to 
offer in this place. 

The truth that at least twenty different incarnate Gods 
were celebrated in the East, and taught of in Greece, to 
each of whom was attributed a history similar in general 
details to that of the Christian's Messiah, but the still more 
significant facts that these various incarnations were all 
supposed to have preceded Jesus in point of chronology, 
and that the miracles attributed to him had been sculptured 
in Temples gray with age before the date assigned for his 
birth, bring their own comment to every mind not closed 
against the light of reason by bigotry, or incapable of ap- 
preciating the truths of history from blind superstition. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the worshippers of the 
Sun-God in the personality of the Jewish Messiah, destroy 
faith in his very existence by the wilful perversity with 
which they insist upon maintaining for him an impossible 
biography, the origin, growth and specialties of the Chris- 
tian faith in Jerusalem, demand the interposition of a hu- 
man founder, and point, with conclusive testimony, to the 
influence of a noble Essenian of precisely the character 
attributed to the meek and gentle Nazarene. 

The biographies of Jesus were compiled long after his 
decease, and were evidently the work of men who, in order 



268 



that the Sctiptures might be fulfilled in his person, inter- 
blended the records of his pure and holy ministry, with 
the miracles of that legend, which — as the history of the 
Sun-God — had been so popularly engrafted into all religious 
systems throughout the East for thousands of years before 
the time of Jesus. 

The true founder of Christian Theology was Paul. This 
indomitable Disciple was himself a Gnostic, and wrote in 
the true Cabalistic spirit of the mystery of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

But to the immediate followers of the beloved Master, 
to those who had heard his voice, lived in his holy pres- 
ence, shared his sufferings, and witnessed his exalted spir- 
itual powers, Jesus was no mystery, his existence no myth. 
They had often marvelled at his words, and failed to un- 
derstand that when he spoke from the simple stand-point 
of his humanity, he was one of themselves, and represented 
himself only as an imperfect mortal ; but when he was 
" in the spirit," as he doubtless often was, he spoke as if 
he had indeed lived before Abraham ; as of " the Son of 
God," the mysterious and long-promised Messiah, who 
temporarily inspired, without being the actual personality 
of the man Jesus. The devotion which rose to enthusi- 
asm, and subsequently to a faith which has survived the 
upheaval of dynasties, the rise and fall of empires, and the 
changes which have revolutionized the old earth and 
builded and rebuilded it again and again, was not founded 
on a myth, a mistake, or an idle superstition. 

When good, pure, divinely inspired and divinely acting 
men enter upon the scene, and this poor degraded human- 
ity of ours can look up to such an one and feel his kind 
hands healing their sicknesses, and hear his tender tones 
compassionating them, and bringing them very near to the 
awful majesty of the unknown God, translating that ma- 



^ 269 

jesty into the pitying and strictly human character of a 
Father, who can wonder that such an one was deemed of 
as a God, and invested with all the popular attributes of 
that mediatorial Deity, whose existence and occasional ap- 
pearances on earth, incarnate in human form, had been 
taught and believed in for countless ages 1 The Jews 
were well acquainted with this popular idea, and their 
great theological teacher, Paul, obviously favored it ; 
hence it cannot excite surprise that many of the early 
Christians were disposed to invest the memory of their be- 
loved Master with the same divine attributes that had 
been assigned to many another great and good man before. 
Whatever the simple followers of Jesus may have deemed 
of his divinity, it was his gospel of love, his pure life, his 
divinely compassionate nature, that so endeared his mem- 
ory to suffering human hearts, and sustained the faith of 
his disciples to preach his gospel amidst the fires of perse- 
cution and the tortures of martyrdom. But the simplicity 
and practical beauty of this gospel of love died out, when it 
became entangled in the sophisms of learning, and identi- 
fied with incomprehensible systems of metaphysical specu- 
lation. 

The early Christian faith taught by the pure Essenian 
JesuSj perished about the time when Constantine the Great 
usurped its name and fame, in order to justify his own ini- 
quities and atrocious murders. Its crucified remains were 
buried under the Athanasian Creed, and the ecclesiastical 
fables of the Council of Nice, and nothing of it was left but 
the name ; the body without the soul, the letter without 
the spirit ; the God without his humanity — the mystery 
without the meaning — nothing was left of the gospel of 
the loving Jesus, but the name. 

We have made many allusions in this and former sec- 
tions, to the Jewish Cabala, and it is now in order to give 



270 

a brief notice of the origin and genius of this celebrated 
work. 

Despite all the assertions of practical historians to the 
contrary, it is quite certain that the Jewish sacred writ- 
ings, if not wholly lost or destroyed, were reduced to very 
few and scarce copies during the different seasons of cap- 
tivity that so often overwhelmed the nation, despoiled the 
once glorious Temple of Solomon, and committed alike the 
books of the law and all the other sacred writings to the 
flames. This spirit of devastation was especially manifested 
before the Babylonish captivity. After the return of the 
exiles to their ruined City and desecrated Temple, the 
solemn duty of re-transcribing the Mosaic law devolved 
upon Ezra, a learned Priest, a most zealous Scribe, and 
one so highly esteemed in his generation, that he was 
commonly called the second founder of the law. Admir- 
ing Rabbis are still accustomed to say, " if Moses had not 
founded the law, Ezra was worthy to have done so." 

In order to fulfill his difficult task with the most con- 
scientious fidelity, Ezra not only transcribed the laws of 
which he had made a deep study during his period of cap- 
tivity, but he gathered together the ancient men of his na- 
tion, consulted with them, carefully noted down the tradi- 
tions which they had committed to memory, and sought in 
every direction to improve upon his own knowledge by 
the information thus acquired through oral tradition. 

It was from this circumstance that authoritative value 
came to be set on traditional records. 

In process of time, as these traditions increased in num- 
ber, and became easily stretched to suit the imagination 
of the narrators, or the temper of the times, the books 
of the law and the Prophets compiled by Ezra sank into 
insignificance compared to the superstitious veneration 
which to some minds clustered around these ever-growing 



271 

traditions, and a sect of believers at length arose called 
Separatists or Pharisees, who absolutely pinned their 
faith and adjusted their lives, manners and actions entirely 
on the assumed authority of these traditions. This was 
the field in which Persian myths and Chaldean ideas were 
permitted to take root, until they almost supplanted the 
stern Monotheism of Abraham and Moses. Jesus fre- 
quently alludes to these traditions as making the law of 
Moses of no effect. It is from this source that the fantas- 
tic flights of Talmudic writers are drawn, and it is on the 
strength of these elastic oral teachings that the famous 
Cabala is founded. Cabalists and devoted admirers of 
these writings, claim for them an antiquity ascending to 
Adam, and an origin stretching up to heaven. Thej trace 
the descent of this book to Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, 
Moses, Joshua, the Judges, and with occasional flying visits 
back to Heaven from whence it came, straight on to the 
possession of a certain Hellenistic Jew, who, with a few 
followers after having been banished for sedition to Alex- 
andria, re-appeared from exile about a century before the 
advent of Jesus of Nazareth. 

One of the Cabalistic collections is called Zohar, or the 
hook of Light, and around this volume, the traditions clus- 
ter with immense enthusiasm. 

The nature of Cabalistic writings we have already ex- 
plained. They are for the most part, designed to mask, 
rather than reveal the true sense of the words, and 
this mystical style is assumed to be necessary in order to 
preserve sacred ideas from the vulgar, in short, not " to 
give pearls to swine," a favorite expression of the Cab- 
alists. 

A collection of Cabalistic writings was made in the 
second century, and some rare copies are still extant ; from 
these we find that the writers enlarge much on the doc- 



272 

trines scattered throughout the East concerning Deity, the 
divine Trinity, which in its various phases, attributes, 
powers and personalities, is exalted as the sublimest mys- 
tery of being. The Cabala discourses of the various 
emanations from Deity commencing with Adam Kadman, 
the Brahma of the Hindoos ; the Osiris of the Egyptians ; 
the Mithra of the Persians ; the Logos, or Word, of the 
Greeks ; the Divine Ensoph, or masculine Wisdom of 
Deity; and the Sophia, or Feminine principle of Creation. 
From thence it teaches of Hierarchies of celestial emana- 
tions. Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominions. Powers, 
Splendors ; Fallen Angels, Planetary Spirits, Evil Angels, 
Demons, Elementaries, Men, Worlds, Spheres, and the en- 
tire order of that creative scheme, on which Hindoo 
Metaphysicians had speculated lor thousands of years, and 
which the Egyptians had inscribed in colossal monuments, 
whose permanence will almost bid defiance to the destroy- 
ing scythe of time. 

The Cabalistic writings, besides the veiled mysticism 
with which they treat philosophical theories, contain 
directions for healing the sick, exorcising evil spirits, in- 
voking good Angels and Planetary spirits ; also, for the 
exercise of magical powers over winds, waves and ele- 
ments generally. These powers are to be procured through 
purity of life, conduct and thought ; strict attention to 
ablutions, purifications, prayers, the use of talismans, spells, 
charms, ceremonial rites, and other methods too familiar 
now to the reader to need farther recital. The Cabalists 
put implicit faith in the use of sacred names, and the com- 
bination of certain numbers. 

They rehearse seventy-two names of Deity, and affirm 
that according to the method in which they are written 
and pronounced, such will be the amount of virtue evolved 
from their use. 



273 

The system of numerals vaguely laid down in the Cabala 
is evidently a ray of light derived from the Egyptian figure 
before alluded to, as manifested in the building of the Great 
Pyramid, but still more lucidly defined in Pythagorean 
Philosophy, — whilst the allusions so often made to the unity 
of design manifest throughout the universe, is a mixture of 
ideas derived from Zoroaster, the Chaldean system of 
planetary correspondences, and a large infusion of Greek 
philosophy. The Cabala and Zohar are curious speci- 
mens of literature ; compendiums of Eastern ideas, and 
fully sufiicient examples of that style of writing justly 
termed Cabalistic^ but when the full meaning of their obscure 
expressions is arrived at, the student will find broader, 
fairer, and more original fields of study in the elder nations, 
in their grand monuments, their most ancient writings, and 
above all, in the stately and inspired utterances of the He- 
brew Prophets. One chapter of the sublime Isaiah, will 
convey a far higher conception of the relations between man 
and his God, than whole pages of the mystic Zohar, and 
the books of Ezekiel and Revelations, contain all the 
mysteries so elaborately concealed in Cabalistic writings ; 
in short, we cannot promise our readers any higher results 
from their study, than such as may be attained by the 
perusal of other works on the antiquities of the East or 
initiation into the rites of modern Free Masonry. In the 
celebrated Rosicrucian diagram of Ezekiel's wheel, the 
whole heart of the mystery is disclosed. Therein will be 
found the six ascending signs of the Zodiac representing 
Heaven^ Good^ the ascent of the human Soul, the Universe, or 
Macrocosm ; in the six descending signs are all the opposite 
principles of evil, the fall of man, the descent of the Soicl into 
matter, etc., etc., etc. In this consists all the mystery of 
Cabalism. 



274 



EZBKIEL'S WHEEL. 
1. 2. 3. 4 5 
Macrocostnos Ascending. X Tuminfj- foint JAbra. 




8.^.10- il. 12. 

Mierocostnos Descendinif. 

The succession of ideas representing the same primal 
thought in the varied but ever progressive intelligence of 
different nations, in different epochs of time, always pre- 
sent old truths in novel points of view. This is essentially 
illustrated in the history of Spiritism. The same funda- 
mental principles underlie the whole structure of human 
and spiritual intercourse, and whether we study the rela- 
tions that unite the two worlds from a Hindoo or Euro- 
pean point of view, in the year 1 or our own time, we shall 
find that Magnetism and Psychology are the only keys 
which ever did or ever will unlock the gates of the Spirit- 
ual Kingdom, whilst the Spiritism or magic of different 
nationalities and times are only rife with examples of the 
various modes in which these two stupendous attributes of 
body and soul may be employed. 

Learned men spend years in attempting to interpret the 
mystic raptures of Cabalism, whilst the stately old Jewish 
Bible lies open to their view, presenting an array of curious 
and varied literature, which far exceeds in valuable sugges- 



275 

tion and breadth of information, every other ancient work 
extant save the Hindoo Vedas, or Persian Zendavesta. 
The direct simplicity of Genesis, tiie elaborate details con- 
cerning Egyptian customs, manners, and modes of worship 
brought to light in the other books of the Pentateuch, the 
startling accounts of angelic ministry with which every 
page abounds, — the sublime imagery of the Hebrew Pro- 
phets, and the curious insight which their denunciations 
afford into the nature and universality of the idolatrous 
practices they protest against; the exquisite pathos and 
beauty of the New Testa.ment teachings, the mixture of 
high-toned morality and mystic Gnosticism of the Epistles, 
and the clue to all ancient mysteries afforded by the 
writings of Ezekiel, Daniel, and John in the Apocalypse, 
combine to render the Hebrew Bible one of the most re- 
markable and notable specimens of ancient literature now 
extant. 

It is a book which must compel the skeptic either to 
pronounce the dictum of wilful falsehood and causeless 
imposture against all ancient history, or else to acknowl- 
edge that there must in olden time, if not now, have been a 
substratum of truth, in the immense array of spiritual de- 
monstrations claimed to have been rendered in the days of 
antiquity. 

The Bible is a book of Spiritism ; an Arhatel of Magic^ a 
storehouse of Oriental knowledge, and as such, commends 
itself to the earnest seeker after magical lore and spiritu- 
alistic light. 

There were periods in the history of the Jews, when the 
prophetic afflatus was lost, quenched, as it would seem, by 
the idolatrous perversity of the people and their devotion 
to other rites than those enjoined by their Priests and 
Prophets. 

Such was the interregnum that occurred after the death 



r 



276 

of Samuel ; and again after the closing up of the Prophetic 
era in the person of Malachi, called from thence " the seal 
of Prophecy." With the advent of Jesas of Nazareth, a 
new era dawned upon the world, not only in relation to 
the sublime teachings which he inculcated and the good 
works by which he sealed his commission, but by the 
strictly human evidences of magnetic and psychologic 
power which resulted from his mission. 

All history proves that there are mental as well as phy- 
sical epidemics ; contagious affections of the mind as well 
as of the body. 

When a great reformatory thinker appears in the arena 
of human life — when such an one is endowed moreover 
with that mysterious charge of Astral fluid which effects 
cures of disease, and produces other magnetic phenomena on 
all who come within his influence, look to see that combi- 
nation of mental and physical power diffusing itself far 
beyond the sphere of its immediate source. 

From such magnetic and psychologic influences arose 
that irresistible tide of religious opinion which spread 
throughout the East from the minds of inspired teachers 
like Confucius, Zoroaster, Buddha and Christ. Such was 
the source of those mental and physical epidemics which 
imparted belief in, and power to effect, the practices of 
witchcraft in the middle ages ; which influenced the French 
Prophets of the Cevennois with a mighty enthusiasm equal 
in effect to the ecstasies of Indian Fakeers ; which ani- 
mated the Ecstatics at the tomb of the Abbe Paris, and 
rendered the " Convulsionaires " insensible to pain ; which 
exhibited itself in demoniacal possessions in the multitudes 
who made up the ghastly records of Witches and Wizards 
in Scotland, New England, Sweden, and in later times, in 
the Valley of Morzine — in short, in all cases of mental 
epidemic, whether it take |the shape of that enthusiasm 



277 

which enabled frail women, young children and feeble old 
men to court the agonies of martyrdom during the first 
centuries of the Christian era, or that subjugation of sense 
and reason to the control of evil spirits, which marked the 
madness of witchcraft. 

We shall conclude this section by a supplement giving 
extracts from an old work entitled Moses and Aaron^ or an 
account of the civil and ecclesiastical rites of the ancient 
Hebrews, by Thos. Godwyn, B, D., published at London in 
1628. 

In these curious excerpts the reader will find correct and 
graphic descriptions of the various kinds of divination, 
etc., whether lawful or forbidden, practiced by the Jews 
of old. 



SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION XIV. 

Some of the modes of Dimnation, hotJi lawful and unlaw- 
-^ul, practiced amongst the Jews. 

"As Idolatrie originally sprang from mistaking of Scripture, so witch- 
craft and sorcery seemeth to have had its first beginning from an imita- 
tion of God's oracles. God spake in divers manners. Heb. i : i ; 
but the chief means of revealing himselfe observed by the Hebrew 
writers are foure, which they term foure degrees of prophecie or divine 
revelation. 

The first degree was Nebuah, which was, when God did by certaine 
visions and apparitions reveale his will. 

The second was Ruach Hacodesch, or inspiration of the Holy Ghost, 
whereby the partie was enabled, without visions or apparitions, to pro- 
phecie. Some, shewing the diff"erence betweene these two, adde, that the 
gift of prophecie did cast a man into a trance or extasie, all his senses 
being taken from him ; but the inspiration of the Holy Ghost was without 
any such extasie or abolition of the senses, as appeareth in David and 
Daniel. Both these degrees, as likewise Urim and Thummim, ceased 



278 

in the second Temple, whence their ancient Doctors say, that after 
the latter Prophets Haggai and Malachy were dead, the Holy Ghost 
went up, or departed from Israel. Howbeit they had the use of a voice 
or eccho from Heaven. In which speech we are not to understand that 
the Holy Ghost wrought not at all the sanctification of men, but that 
this extraordinary voice, enabling men to prophecie by the inspiration of 
the Holy Ghost, then ceased ; and in this sense the Holy Ghost was 
said to have departed from Israel. 

The third degree was Urim and Thummim. Urim signifieth light, 
and Thummim perfection. That they were two ornaments in the High 
Priest's brest-plate, is generally agreed upon ; but what manner of or- 
naments, or how they gave answer, is hard to resolve. Some thinke 
them to be the foure rowes of stones in the brest-plate, the splendor 
and brightnesse of which foreshewed victory, and by the rule of contra- 
ries, wQ may gather, that the darknesse of the stones not shining pre- 
saged evil. Others say it was the name Jehovah, put in the doubling 
of the brest-plate, for that was double. Others declare the manner of 
consulting with Urim and Thummim consisted of all the Tribes' names, 
and likewise of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaak and Jacob, so that no 
letter of the Alphabet was wanting. The question being proposed, 
some say that the letters which gave the answer did arise and eminently 
appear above the others. An example they take from the 2nd Sam. 
2 : I. When Daniel asked the Lord, " Shall I goe up into any of the 
Cities of Judah .?"' the Lord answered, "Goe up." Here say they, 
that the letters which represented the Oracle, did, after a strange man- 
ner, joyne themselves into perfect syallables and intire words, and made 
the answer compleat. The fourth degree was Bath Kol, ' ' the daughter 
of a voice" or an eccho ; by it is meant a voice from Heaven, declaring 
the will of God ; it tooke place in the second Temple, when the three 
former degrees of prophecie ceased. 

The several sorts of Divination forbidden. 

Wee shall find, Deut. i8: lo, ii, those Diviners, which are by the law 
forbidden, distinguished into seven kindes, not because there were no 
others, but they were the most usual, ist. An observer of times. 2d, 
An inchanter. 3d, A witch. 4th, A charmer. 5th, A consulter with 
familiar spirits. 6th, A wizard. 7th, A necromancer. To these we 
may adde an eighth, Consulting with the staffe. And a ninth, A con- 
sulter with intralls. The first is ; An observer of times, one that dis- 
tinguisheth times and seasons, saying, such a day is good, or such a day 



279 

is naught, such an houre, such a month is luckie, and such and such 

unluckie, for such and such businesses The second sort of 

unlawful Diviner is also an observer of times ; the first drawing his con- 
clusions from the colour or motion of the clouds ; The second, from his 
owne superstitious observation of good and evil events, happening upon 
such and such dayes, such and such times; the first seemeth to have 
drawne his conclusions a priori, from the clouds or planets, causing 
good and bad events ; the second a posteriori, from the events them- 
selves, happening upon such and such times. This Planetary observer 
when he watched the clouds, seemeth to have stood with his face East- 
ward, his backe Westward, his right hand towards the South, and his left 
hand towards the North. 

2. The second is Menachesch, rendered an Inchanter ; it importeth 
rather an Augur, or Soothsayer. The originall signifieth such a one 
who out of his owne experience draweth observations, to foretell good 
or evil to come, as Soothsayers doe by observing such and such events, 
by such and such flying of birds, screechings, or kawings. The Rab- 
bines speake in this wise. He is Menachesch, a Soothsayer, who will 
say, because a morsell of Bread is fallen out of his mouth, or his staife 
out of his hand, or his sonne called him backe, or a Crow kawed unto 
him, or a Goat passed by him, or a Serpent was on his right hand, or a 
Fox on his left hand, therefore he will say, doe not this or that to-day. 
This word is used Gen. 30 : 27. "I have learned by experience, saith 
Laban, that the Lord hath blessed mee for thy sake. " Againe, Gen. 
44 : 5. "Is not this the cup in which my Lord drinketh } and where by in- 
deed hee divineth .?" That is, proveth or maketh triall or experience 
what manner of men yee are ; the Heathen people were very supersti- 
tious in these observations ; some dayes were unluckie, others luckie ; 
on some dayes they counted it unfortunate to begin battaile, on some 
months unfortunate to marry. 

And as they were superstitious in observing unluckie signes, so like- 
wise in the meanes used to avert the evil portended; the meanes were 
either words or deeds. Deeds : if an unluckie bird, or such like came 
in their way, they would fling stones at it ; and of this sort is the scratch- 
ing of a suspected Witch, which amongst the simpler sort of people is 
thought to bee a means to cure Witchcraft. By words, they thought to 
elude the evill, signified by such signes, when they say : 

" This evil light on thine owne head." 

The third is Mecascheph, A Witch, properly a Jugler. The originall 
signifieth such a kinde of Sorcerer who bewitcheth the senses and mindes 
of men, by changing the formes of things, making them appeare other- 



280 

wise than indeed they are. The same wbrd is applied to the Sorcerers 
in Egypt, who resisted Moses, Exod. 7:11. Then Pharoh also called 
Mecaschphirn, the Sorcerers. Now the magicians in Egypt, they also 
did in like manner with their Inchantments. This latter part of the 
text explaineth what those Sorcerers were. In that they are called 
magicians, it implieth their learning, that they were wise men, and 
great philosophers ; the word inchantments declareth the manner of the 
delusion, and it hath the signification of such a slight, whereby the eyes 
are deluded, for Lahatim, there translated inchantments, importeth the 
glistening flame of a fire, or sword, wherewith the eyes of men are 
•dazled. 

The Greeke version doth not unfitly terme them compounders of 
medicines, or if you please, complexion-makers, such artisens who 
make men and women false complexions. Hence it is that the Apostle 
compareth such false teachers, who under a forme and shew of godli- 
nesse, leade captive silly women, to the Egyptian Sorcerers, Zannes and 
Zambres, who assisted Moses, 2 Tim. 3 : 8. These two were of chief 
note. In the Talmud they are called Johanne and Mamre. 

The fourth is Chober, a Charmer. The Hebrew word signifieth 
conjoining or consociating; either from the league and fellowship which 
such persons have with the Devill, or as Bodine thinketh, because such 
kinde of Witches have frequent meetings, in which they dance and make 
merrie together. 

Onkelos translateth such a charmer Raten, a Mutterer, intimating 
the manner of these Witcheries to be by the muttering or soft speak- 
ing of some spelle or charme. The description of a charmer is thus: 
Hee is a charmer who speaketh words of a strange language, and with- 
out sense, and he, in his foolishnesse, thinketh that these words are profit- 
able; that if one say so, or so, unto a Serpent or Scorpion, it cannot 
hurt a man, and he that saith so, or so, unto a man, he cannot be hurt. 
Hee that whispereth over a wound, or readeth a verse out of the Bible, 
likewise he that readeth over an Infant, that it may not bee frighted, or 
that layeth the Booke of the Law, or the Philacteries, upon a childe 
. that it may sleepe, such are not only among Inchanters, or Charmers, 
but of those that generally deny the Law of God, because they make 
the words of the Scripture medicine for the body, whereas they are not, 
but medicine for the Soule. Of this sort was that, whereof Bodinus 
speaketh. That a childe by saying a certain verse out of the Psalmes, 
hindred a woman that shee could not make her butter; by reciting the 
same verse backward, hee made her butter come presently. 

The fifth Schoel Ob, a consulter with Ob, or with familiar spirits. 



281 



Ob signifieth properly a Bottle, and is applied in divers places of Scrip- 
ture to Magicians, because they being possessed with an evil spirit, 
speake with a soft and hollow voice, as out of a Bottle. The Greek 
calleth them Ventriloquos, such whose voice seemeth to proceed out o f 
their belly. Such a Diviner was the Damosell, Acts i6: i6, in Saint 
Augustin's judgement, and is probably thought so by most Expositors, 
who are of opinion, that the spirit of Python, with which this Damosell 
was possessed, is the same which the spirit of Ob was, amongst the He- 
brews. Hence the Witch of Endor, whom Saul requested to raise up 
Samuel, is said in Hebrew to have consulted with Ob; but among the 
Latine Expositors, she is commonly translated Pythonissa, one possess- 
ed with the spirit of Python. 

The sixth is Jiddegnoni, a Wizard; he is translated sometimes a 
cunning man. Hee had his name from knowledge, which either the 
wizard professed himself to have, or the common people thought him 
to have. The Rabbles say hee was called in Hebrew from a certain 
beast, in shape resembling a man, because these wizards, when they did 
utter their prophecies, held a bone of this beast between their teeth. 
This haply might bee some diabolicall sacrament or ceremonie, used for 
the confirmation of the league betweene Satan and the Wizard. Pro- 
phane history mentioneth divinations of the like kinde, as that Magi- 
cians were wont to eat the principall parts and members of such beasts, 
which they deemed propheticall, thinking thereby that the soule of such 
beasts would be conveyed into their bodies, whereby they might be en- 
abled for prophecy. 

The seventh is Doresch el hammethim ; the Greeke answereth word 
for word — ^an enquirer of the dead, a Necromancer. Such diviners 
consulted with Satan in the shape of a dead man. A memorable ex- 
ample wee finde recorded ; i Sam. : 29. There King Saul, about to 
warre with the Philistins, (God denying to answer him either by 
dreames, or by Urim, or by Prophets, ) upon the fame of the Witch of 
Endor, he repaired to her, demanding that Samuel might bee raised up 
from the dead, to tell him the issue of the warre. Now that this was 
not in truth Samuel, is easily evinced, both by testimonies of the learned, 
and reasons : First, it is improbable, that God, who had denied to an- 
swer him by any ordinary meanes, should now deigne him an answer 
so extraordinary. Secondly, no Witch or Devil can disturbe the bodies 
or soules of such as die in the Lord, because they rest from their labors; 
Rev. 14: 14. Thirdly, if it had beene Samuel, he would doubtless 
have reproved Saul for consulting with Witches. 

The eighth is Scoelmakle, a consulter with his staffe. Jerome saith 



282 



the manner of this divination was thus : That if the doubt were be- 
tweene two or three cities, which first should be assaulted ; to determine 
this, they wrote the names of the cities upon certain staves or arrowes, 
which being shaked in a quiver together, the first that was pulled out 
determined the citie. 

Others deliver the manner of this consultation to have been thus : 
The consulter measured his staffe by spans, or by the length of his fin- 
ger, saying as he measured, I will goe, I will not goe, I will doe such a 
thing, I will not doe it, and as the last spanne fell out, so he deter- 
mined. This was termed by the Heathens, Divination by rods or ar- 
rowes. 

The ninth was Roebaccabed, a diviner by intralls. Nebucadnezar 
being to make warre both with the Jews and the Ammonites, and doubt- 
irig in the way against whether of these he should make his first onset : 
First, he consulted with his arrowes and staves, of which hath beene 
spoken of immediately before ; Secondly, he consulted with the intralls 
of beasts. This practice was generally received among the Heathens, 
and because the liver was the principall member observed, it was called 
Consultation with the liver. Three things were observed in this kind 
of divination. First, the colour of the intralls, whether they were all 
well-coloured ; Secondly, their place, whether none were displaced : 
Thirdly, the number, whether none were wanting. Among those that 
were wanting, the want of the liver or the heart chiefly presaged ill. 
That day when Julius Caesar was slaine, it is storied, that in two fat 
oxen then sacrificed, the heart was wanting in them both. 



283 



SECTION XV. 

Magic and Spiritism amongst the Qhaldeans. 




Tlie Totver of Babel.] 

The religious doctrines of the Chaldeans, varied from 
those of the Hindoos and Egyptians chiefly, in their differ- 
ent modes of expression, in the name appropriated to 
different Deities, and the functions which these mythical 
personages were supposed to be endowed with. The basic 
idea of Solar and Astral worship however prevailed in all 
nations alike, but the absence of sexual emblems on Chal- 
dean monumental remains, seetns to imply that this peo- 
ple adhered to the astronomical religion, without engraft- 
ing its popular successor, Sex worship, upon its purer 
Theosophy. Although our only information concerning the 
Spiritism of Chaldea is derived from monumental records, 
oral traditions, and cotemporaneous history, these sources 
are abundantly sufficient to testify to the fact that Baby- 
lon the great and the Priests of Chaldea, so widely re- 
nowned for occult wisdom, acquired this vast reputation 
principally for transcendent skill in the arts of divination, 
and the methods of reading the future by Astrology. The 
Chaldeans were also celebrated for certain branches of 
chemical knowledge, especiallj'^ for the means whereby 
they learned to resist the action of fire and poisons. 



284 

Schools of the Magi were established at Babylon, and as 
magic was deemed an essential item in the art of govern- 
ing the nation, and conducting armies to victory, even 
Kings, Statesmen, and Warriors, no less than the Sons of 
the Nobles and wealthy Citizens, resorted to these famous 
seminaries of occult learning, or sat at the feet of the Magi 
to drink in the elements of their profound wisdom. It 
was in these schools that Daniel and some of the hand- 
somest and most intelligent of the Hebrew captives were 
placed for education after the conquest of Judea by the 
Babylonians. It was from thence that the remarkable ad- 
mixture of Chaldean and Persian philosophy was derived, 
which marks the literature of the Jews after the Babylonish 
captivity. There are many scholars who believe — and that 
upon good foundation — that the writing of the Pentateuch, 
the composition of the Cabala, and the fables of the Tal- 
mud, owe so much of their peculiar spirit to the Chaldean 
Magi, that those who are well acquainted with these He- 
brew writings, lose nothing by the total lack of Chaldean 
Scriptures. 

In Chaldea, as in other Asiatic and Eastern nations, the 
connection between religious rites and the art of magic 
was inseparable. The highest class of the Priesthood — 
those set apart for Temple service — were " Star Gazers" or 
Astrologers, healers of the sick, by magnetism, {i.e.^) the 
laying on of hands — and even the High Priest himself — 
the functionary who virtually ruled the land through his 
influence over the reigning monarch — delivered oracles, 
and often practiced the highest form of magical rites. So 
great was the skill of the Chaldean Magi in Astrology, 
that it has become proverbial in all ages to attribute the 
invention of this art to the Chaldeans, and in some lands 
the terms Astrologer and Chaldean were held to be sy- 
nonymous. 



285 

The Babylonish Priests were reputed to be thoroughly 
well acquainted with the occult virtue of stones, plants, 
herbs, vapors and narcotics. They claimed to be able to 
cast spells on whole armies, arresting their progress, or 
paralyzing their power of action. They could even cause 
the downfall of nations, though it is obvious they had no 
such power in the preservation of their own once splendid 
dynasty. Their achievements during the flush of their 
splendor and magniflcence, caused their vast claims for 
magical knowledge to be feared and quoted through all 
cotemporaneous nationalities. 

Their methods of interpreting dreams and visions, of 
prophesying or soothsaying, and resisting the action of fire, 
are significantly alluded to in the book of Daniel, wherein 
it clearly appears that the natural endowments, or in mod- 
ern phraseology, the normal mediumsJiip of the young He- 
brew Captives, were found superior in truthful results to 
the arts of the instructed Magians, and it is quite probable 
that if many of the stupendous claims set up for the mag- 
ical practices of antiquity could be brought to a similar 
test, they would be found inferior to the true prophetic 
gifts which spring from natural endowments. It is well to 
r notice however, that Daniel and his companions practiced 
that strict regimen and remarkable abstinence which has 
[ been so universally found efficacious in promoting spiritual 
afflatus. Let not those who rely solely on their medium- 
(ship without culture^ mistake this important suggestion. 

In Chaldea as amongst all other ancient nations, the 
most honored class of the Priests were true Prophets^ per- 
sons naturally endowed, but these fortunate individuals, 
like the Hebrews, often arose outside the priestly ranks, 
and even when within them, seldom accepted office, pre- 
ferring — as those gifted by the power of the spirit ln^'al•i- 
ably do — to act independently of priestly organizations. 



286 

Amongst the priests there were three distinct classes. The 
first were the Singers, Musicians, or Exorcists, who were 
commonly employed in exorcising demons and ministering 
to the sick. These by their admirable performances on in- 
struments or in solemn chants stimulated the minds of 
worshippers to devotion, enchanted the listeners, even ser- 
pents becoming obedient, and ferocious, beasts yielding 
themselves up to the spell of their delicious melodies. 

The second class were the magicians or wonder-workers, 
through whom all manner of soothsaying was effected, also 
ordeals by fire, were shown, elements stilled, or storms 
raised ; spells and enchantments procured, and divinations 
or auguries from entrails, burnt offerings, flights of birds, 
or other natural objects obtained. 

The third and highest class were the " Star Gazers," for 
whom were erected those gigantic temples of which the 
famous tower of Babel or Belus forms an example. The 
exterior and apex of these wonderful monuments were used 
for astronomical observations, the interior for those mys- 
terious rites through which Initiates were taught, and 
Priestly Hierophants received their education. As these 
famous mysteries were subsequently inaugurated in Persia 
under the name of Mithraic rites, we learn from them that 
the Chaldean originals were simply designed to teach the 
fundamental principles of Sabseism, or the most ancient 
astronomical religion. 

Cicero in his treatises on Soothsaying and Divination, at- 
tributes paramount excellence to the Chaldeans, intimating 
in fact that to these most ancient priests the origin of As- 
trological Science and magical art is due. Their modes 
of initiation and study were very severe. Lives of purity 
and asceticism were demanded, but though they were re- 
quired to abstain from wine and the flesh of animals, they 
never practiced the rigid discipline enforced upon the Hin- 



287 

doo Fakeers, on the contrary, they maintained that emaci- 
ated bodies and enfeebled frames were more subject to the 
attacks of evil spirits, and less capable of resisting them, 
than healthy, pure, and well balanced organisms. 

Although a vast number of the engraved tablets found 
amongst the ruins of ancient Chaldea, exhibit zodiacs and 
astronomical signs in abundance, there is no authentic rec- 
ord of the exact system of calculation upon which these 
great Adepts based their methods of Astrology. The 
Persians, Chinese and Mediaeval Professors of this art, 
claim to be in possession of correct Chaldean schemes, but 
whether this be true or false, the scientific astrologer is 
aware that the system of calculation by which successful 
results are to be obtained, is as exact and unvarying a science 
as Astronomy, and does not change with country or clime. 
Those who can obtain successful results then, even in the 
nineteenth century, may assure themselves they are in pos- 
session of the same rules by which the Chaldean Adepts 
achieved their vast renown. As the methods of Astrology 
are very elaborate, and require much more space than we 
could assign them in this volume, we refer those who may 
be disposed to study this curious science, to the many 
treatises on the subject that are now extant. Those who 
desire to acquaint themselves with the niost approved rules 
of the art, should study Lilly's Astrology, published in 
1647. Students well versed in this branch of occultism, 
claim the work in question to be the most reliable and au- 
thentic now in print. 

It would be useless to pursue our investigations into an- 
cient Asiatic or African researches farther. 

The spiritism of the Jews, Medes, Persians, Gnostics, 
Neo-Platonists and early Christians, with the modifications 
which we so often insist on, as the results of growth 
through different epochs of time, and changes induced by 



288 

varied climes and scenes — all proclaim the steady and un- 
broken succession of ideas springing up from one original 
source, namely, an observance and worship of the powers 
of nature. Now, as heretofore, we claim that nothing is 
lost in history or in nature. 

However limited the intercourse between ancient nation- 
alities might have been, their frequent irruptions into each 
other's territories, the transmission of opinions through 
mutual captivities, through commerce, oral tradition and 
the contagion of thought.^ render it certain, that the utter 
obliteration of ideas from any one land by the destruction 
of their Scriptures, or the loss of a key to their hiero- 
glyphical inscriptions is simply impossible. It is the 
favorite opinion of modern students, especially those of a 
romantic and naturally mystical turn of mind, that Egypt 
and Chaldea, the two most antique nations of civilization, 
Hindostan excepted, conceal beneath their cuniform 
characters, profuse hieroglyphics and singular tablets, 
profound revelations in occultism that are forever lost to 
mankind, unless, indeed, some spiritual " CEdipus" of these 
ruined lands, should disclose their mysteries through the 
entranced lips of a modern Somnamhule. 

With these attempts to repair the breaches in that tre- 
mendous veil of mystery which once shrouded the sacer- 
dotal power of Babylon the great, hushed the voice of 
musical Memnon, and put the finger of eternal silence on 
the stony lips of the Sphinx, we have no sympathy, nor 
do we ojBfer any plea for belief in such directions. 

We claim now, as heretofore, that we have more of the 
real spirit of antiquity in our midst, than the race in this 
utilitarian and materialistic age understands ; besides, the 
same imperishable sources of knowledge from which the 
ancients derived their opinions and framed their systems 
of Theosophy, are open to the students of the nineteenth 



289 

century in all their fullness. The starry Scriptures of the 
skies still unfold their pages of light for the perusal of the 
patient Astrologer. The plants dispense their fragrance, 
the herbs their virtues, the gums and spices stimulate the 
senses with aromatic odor now, as in olden times. The 
wonderful loadstone and the subtle amber have yielded up 
mysteries to the researches of modern Science, of which 
the ancients scarcely dreamed. What oracular responses 
could now be given by the telegraph, which would put the 
magic of Dodona to shame ! What miracles of necro- 
mancy are daily effected by the magic of the photographer, 
by aid of the Egyptian's Sun-God ! The five hundred 
thousand men that were required to drag stones over a 
made road, and then upheave them by clumsy levers, to 
build the pyramid of Cheops, might now stand by with 
their hands in their pockets, watching labor-saving ma- 
chinery, propelled by that mightiest of all magicians, the 
noble steam engine, doing the work a thousand times 
quicker, and a thousand times better, than ever the poor, 
bruised hands of unwilling captives could have done ! It 
is not in executive power in any single direction that the 
ages of antiquity can successfully compete with the scien- 
tific triumphs of the nineteenth century, when man's 
knowledjije of how to control the elements, and his perfect 
comprehension of imponderable forces as applied to me- 
chanical uses, produce results in physical science, which 
would make all the Magicians of the East, and all the 
wonder-workers of antiquity, give up the ghost in envy 
and amazement. But it is not in materialistic acquire- 
ments or physical science, that the ancients transcended 
us or even began to equal the magical marvels, which the 
building and furnishing of one single modern mansion dis- 
plays. It is in the realm of metaphysical speculation and 
the utilization of Soul powers, that the ancients were oi-ir 



290 

masters, and that the moderns are wilfully blind, and con- 
temptuously determine to remain so — nay more : when the 
mere suggestion is thrown out that spiritual sciences may 
correlate those of physics, the scoff, sneer and jeer of Sci- 
entists, and the anathema maranatha of Priests, effectually 
stifles all attempts at research save on the part of those 
who are bold enough to face the rack and thumb and screw 
of moral martyrdom. Take for instance, the correlation of 
astronomy and astrology. Whilst astronomy declares the 
mathematics and geometry of the sidereal heavens, astrol- 
ogy defines the executive forces which suns, planets and 
systems mutually exercise upon each other, and the influ- 
ence which each atom of matter exercises upon every 
other atom. Physicists allow that light and heat are the 
two great motor powers of form and being ; yet, whilst 
admitting that man is the creature of physical organiza- 
tion, that his character and physique are determined by 
the place where he is born, the ante-natal influences which 
create his special tendencies, he shoots out the lip of scorn 
when Astrology claims that the configuration of the heaven- 
ly bodies, the original sources of light, heat, and therefore of 
all subordinate effects, have aught to do with shaping man's 
destiny, or determining the career he has to run. Nothing 
is so thankless and unprofitable as the attempt to pit spir- 
itual phenomena against physical formulae, or argue in- 
ductively against bigotry and materialism ; but we venture 
to assert, that if one score of thoroughly well-instructed 
astrologists, who are both astronomers and mathematicians, 
shall undertake to set up the figure of one life submitted 
to their methods for analysis, the results in each instance 
shall be precisely the same, and every leading feature of 
the physical form, mental tendency and leading events of 
the human pilgrimage, shall closely correspond, every one 
of the twenty with the other. 



291 • 

If such a possibility as the above does not indicate the ' ~ 
elements of " exact science," we are at a loss to know the 
application of the words. Meantime, the modern spirit me- 
dium of Europe and America, has within the last quarter of 
a century exhibited natural gifts and spontaneous powers, 
which put the acquired arts of ancient Magians into the 
shade. Why they are not as great as the mediums of In- 
dia, Arabia, and Asia Minor, is, because the Western me- 
dium depends entirely on the spirits to do the work for 
him, and offers no prepared conditions, either physically, 
mentally, or in circumstantial surroundings, to aid the 
spirits, whilst the Asiatic and African medium fasts, prays, 
thinks, dresses, washes, and practices the spiritualistic con- 
ditions necessary for the highest gifts, through years of dis- 
cipline. Spiritual bigotr}', scientific prejudice and popular 
indifference on religious subjects, are the underlying causes 
which have cast their blight on Spiritism and Magic in the 
nineteenth century, and cause these wonderful elements of 
knowledge to loom up from the antique ages, in propor- 
tions as stupendous and overwhelming as the Pyramid of 
Cheops compared to a modern Chm-ch, or the cave Tem- 
ples of Elephanta and EUora, gauged by the proportions 
of a London museum or a Parisian gallery of art. 

The absence of magical art is not the lack of magical 
knowledge. The spirit world will not confer its prizes upon y 
dunces and idlers. The natural world is the open page, 
the heaven, earth, and all that in them is, are the letters 
of the magical alphabet, and until man learns these, and 
enters upon the spelling book of magnetism, and the gram- 
mar of psychology, this pen of ours may point the way, 
but every pilgrim foot must tread the path for himself.^ 
Thus, and thus only, may we rival the ancient man in the 
goal of magical achievements to which he ascended. 

We shall conclude this section by a few quotations, the 



. 292 

first of which we take from Ennemoser^s History of Magic^ 
in which he gives an appropriate sketch of the characteris- 
tics of the Lapps and Finlanders, whose spiritism strongly 
iUustrates our opinion, that climate, soil, scenery and sur- 
roundings, exert remarkable effects in modifying natural 
spiritualistic endowments, also that these are communica- 
ted by the contagion of thought in communities already 
predisposed to such affections. 

'■' The present nations of Asia, among whom ecstatic states and visions are to be 
met with, are worthy of mention. Among them are the Siberian Schamans, the 
Arabian Dervishes, and the Samozedes and Lapps. Among all these nations a 
species of somnambulism is common, into which they fall, either by means of 
natural susceptibility, or by peculiar movements and exercises of the body, and 
rarely by the use of narcqtic substances. Among the northern nations, the phe- 
nomenon of second-sight is said to be frequent. 

"Among the many Mongolian tribes, and also the Lapps, particularly excitable 
and susceptible persons are chosen as ghost-seers and sorcerers ; in India as Jong- 
leurs, in Siberia as Schamans. With much natural disposition^ strengthened by 
practice and mode of life, the majority require nothing more than to shout vio- 
lently, to storm, to dance and to drum, to turn round in a circle, to induce insensi- 
bility and convulsive rigidity. Among the Siberian Schamans, as we learn from 
Georgi, narcotic substances are used, such a decoction of fungus or other excit- 
ing vegetable substances to produce visions, in which they see and communicate 
with spirits, learning from them future and distant events. They also see distant 
countries and the souls of the dead, to whom they ascend from the body through 
the air to the seats of the gods, which Hogstrom especially relates of the Lapps, 
among whom, such a high degree of susceptibility exists, that the most remark- 
able phenomena are witnessed. If any one opens his mouth or closes it, or points 
to anything with his fingers, or dances, or makes other gesticulations, there are 
many who will imitate all this, and when they have done so, inquire whether 
they have done anything improper, as they knew nothing of what they did. These 
Lapps are excitable to such a degree, that they are thrown into insensibility and 
convulsions, by the most trifling and unexpected occurrence, such as a sound, or 
a spark of fire. In the church they often fall into insensibility when the preacher 
speaks too loud or gesticulates too much ; while others, ou the contrary, jump up 
as if mad, rush out of the church, knock down all who oppose them, and even 
strike their friends and neighbors." 

"Pallas relates that the Schamans, the Samozedes, the Katschinzes and other 
north Asiatic nations, are so extremely excitable, that it is only requisite to touch 
them unexpectedly to disturb their whole organization, to excite their imagination 
and make them lose all self-command. Each one infects the person next to him 
sympathetically, so that in this manner whole neighborhoods fall into fear, uneasi- 
ness and confusion. Pallas relates of some girls among the Katschinzes, that 
they feel simultaneous sufiering as soon as one of their number becomes ill. ' For 
the last few years,' says he, '& species of insanity has made its appearance 



293 

among the young girls of the Katschinzes as if by infection. When they have 
these fits they run out of the villages, scream, and behave with the greatest wild- 
ness, tear their hair, and endeavor to hang and drown themselves. These attacks 
last usually some hours, and occur when their sympathy has been excited by the 
sight of other girls in a similar condition, without any certain order — sometimes 
weekly, at other times not appearing for months.' All these and similar phenom- 
ena are related by G-eorgi of the Mongol and Tartar races, who all have the same 
common origin." 

Our next quotation will be from a series of autobiograph- 
ical sketcbes, entitled " Ghost Land," written by the author 
of this work, published by Emma Hardinge Britten in her 
admirable American periodical, " The Western Star." 

^' In Lapland, Finland, and the northeastern part of 
Russia, our new acquaintances had beheld so many evi- 
dences of inborn occult powers amongst the natives, that 
they had come to a conclusion which the well informed 
Spiritualist of modern times will no doubt be ready to en- 
dorse, and that is, that certain individuals of the race are 
so peculiarly endowed, that they live, as it were, on the 
borders of the invisible world, and from time to time see, 
hear, act, and think under its influence, as naturally as 
other individuals do who are only capable of sensing mate- 
rial and external things. 

'' Moreover, our friends had arrived at the opinion that 
certain localities and climactric influences were favorable 
or otherwise to the development of these innate occult en- 
dowments. 

" Experience had shown them that mountainous regions, 
or highly rarefied atmospheres, constituted the best physi- 
cal conditions for the evolvement of magical powers, and 
they therefore argued that the great prevalence of super- 
mundane beliefs and legendary lore in those latitudes 
arises from the fact, that intercourse with the interior 
realms of being are the universal experience of the people, 
not that they are more ignorant or superstitious than other 
races. Lord D had brought to England with him a 



294 

'' Schaman/' or priest, of a certain district in Russia, 
\vhere he had given extraordinary evidence of his powers. 
This man's custom was to array himself in a robe of state, 
trimmed with the finest furs and loaded with precious 
stones, amongst which clear crystals were the most es- 
teemed. 

" In this costume, with head, arms, and feet bare, the 
Schaman would proceed to beat a magical drum, made 
after a peculiar fashion, and adorned with a variety of 
symbolical and fantastic paintings. 

" Commencing his exercises by simply standing within 
a circle traced on the ground, and beating his drum in low, 
rhythmical cadence to his muttered chantings, the Schaman 
would gradually rise to a condition of uncontrollable 
frenzy ; his hands would acquire a muscular power and ra- 
pidity which caused the drum to resound with the wildest 
clamor, and strokes which defied the power of man to 
count. 

" His body, meantime, would sway to and fro, spin 
round, and finally be elevated and even suspended several 
feet in the air, by a power wholly unknown to the wit- 
nesses. His cries and gesticulations were frightful, and the 
whole scene of ' manticism ' would end by the performer's 
sinking on the earth in a rigid cataleptic state, during 
which he spoke oracular sentences, or gave answers to 
questions with a voice which seemed to proceed from the 
air some feet above his prostrate form. During my stay 
in England I was present at several experimental perform- 
ances with this Schaman, and though he could unques- 
tionably predict the future and describe correctly distant 

places and persons, Professor M and myself were both 

disappointed in the results which we expected to proceed 
from his very elaborate modes of inducing the ' mantic ' 
frenzy. Lord D accounted for the inferiority of his 



295 

protege's powers by stating that the atmosphere was pre- 
judicial to his peculiar temperament, and though he had 
striven to surround him with favorable conditions, it was 
obvious he needed the specialties of his native soil and cli- 
mate for the complete evolvement of the phenomena he 
had been accustomed to exhibit." 

" We found another class, who seemed to have no extra- 
ordinary endowments of a spiritual nature, yet in whom 
the most wonderful powers of inner light, curative virtue, 
and prophetic vision could be awakened through artificial 
means, the most potent of which were the inhalation of 
mephitic vapors, pungent essences, or narcotics ; the action 
of clamorous noise, or soothing music ; the process of look- 
ing into glittering stones and crystals ; excessive and vio- 
lent action, especially in a circular direction, and lastly, 
through the exhalations proceeding from the warm blood 
of animated beings. All these influences, together with 
an array of forms, rites, and ceremonials which involve 
mental action, and captivate the senses, I now affirm to 
constitute the art of ancient magic, and I moreover believe 
that wherever these processes are systematically resorted 
to, they will, in more or less force, according to the suscep- 
tibility of the subject, evoke all those occult powers known 
as ecstasy, somnambulism, clairvoyance, the gifts of pro- 
phecy, healing, etc. 

We derived another item of philosophy from our re- 
searches, which was, that under the influence of magical 
processes, the human organism can not only be rendered 
insensible to pain, but that wounds, bruises, and even mu- 
tilation can be inflicted upon it, without permanent injury ; 
also, that it can be rendered positive to the law of gravita- 
tion, and ascend into the air with perfect ease. 

Also, the body can be so saturated with magnetism, or 
charged with spiritual essence, that fire cannot burn it ; 



296 

in a word, when the body becomes enveloped in the inde- 
structible essence of spirit, or the soul element, it can be 
made wholly positive to all material laws, transcending 
them in a way astonishing and inexplicable to all unin- 
structed beholders. Of this class of phenomena, let me 
refer to the " Convulsionaires of St. Medard ;" the history 
of the " French Prophets of Avignon ;" the still more re- 
cent accounts of the frightful mental epidemic which pre- 
vailed in the district of Morzine in 1864; the now well 
attested facts of supermundane power enacted by the Fa- 
keers, Brahmins, and ecstatics of the East, and many of the 
inexplicable physical and mental phenomena attributed to 
monastic ecstatics." 

"Amongst the ' Convulsionaires of St. Medard' and the 
possessed peasants of Morzine, one of the most familiar de- 
monstrations of an extra-mundane condition was the delight 
and apparent relief which the sufferers represented them- 
selves as experiencing, when blows violent enough, as it 
would seem, to have crushed them bone by bone, were ad- 
ministered to them. At the tomb of the Abbe Paris, and 
amongst the frenzied patients of Morzine, the most pathetic 
appeals would be made that powerful men would pound 
their bodies with huge mallets, and the cries of ' Heavier 
yet, good brother ! heavier yet, for the love of Heaven !' 
were amongst the words most constantly uttered. 

" During the fearful struggle maintained by the brave and 
devoted prophets of the Cevennes against their oppressors, 
every history, whether favorable or antagonistic, makes 
mention of the exhibitions by which Cavillac and others of 
' the inspired,' proved their ability, under the afflatus of 
ecstasy, to resist the action of fire." 

The ancient Chaldeans acquired this art not by any 
magical process, but by the knowledge of such chemicals 
as asbestos, and other substances which would render the 



297 

body fire-proof. The French Prophets, and many spirit 
mediums of the nineteenth century, have proved their 
power to resist the action of fire under spiritual afflatus. 
Another example, if more were wanting, of the superiority 
of natural spiritualistic endowments, over the most occult 
methods of magical art. 



598 



SECTION XVI. 

Magic amongst the Greeks and Romans — Tlie mysteries 
of SamotJirace and Eleusis — the Grecian Sybils and 
Delphic Oracle. 

Magic in the classical lands of Greece and Rome be- 
comes so thoroughly transformed from the solemn meta- 
physics of India, the semi-savagism of Arabia, and the 
profound mysticism of Egypt, by the young life, blossom- 
ing intellect, and love of the beautiful which characterized 
Grecian genius, and in a measure imparted its grace to the 
sterner spirit of Rome, that no attempt to condense de- 
scriptions of their spiritism could do justice to the subject. 
On the other hand our available space has been too much 
taken up with analyses of the underlying principles of mag- 
ical history in the Orient — the true fatherland of magic — 
either to permit of, or to need our dwelling at any length 
upon these fascinating themes, so clearly defined as the 
poetry of life's sterner prose. 

Magic, sorcery and the correspondingly dark shades of 
Spiritism, were not in harmony with the graceful and elas- 
tic character of classic lands. Their peoples loved phi- 
losophy, and revelled in the subtleties of thought, as por- 
trayed through the brilliant ideality of those renowned 
Sages who spangled over the hemisphere of Greek and 
Roman history with stars of immortal lustre. 

Strictly speaking, no well marked systems of religious 
belief prevailed in Greece and Rome. Their Pantheon of 
countless Gods and Goddesses were too closely allied with 
humanity to impress their votaries with the awe and 



299 



majesty appropriate to the idea of Deity, and even their 
most exalted flights of imagination could not embody the 
creative principle in aught beyond an impersonated Demi - 
urgus. 

As we have already premised that we are not prepared 
in this place to render any justice to the abundant and 
mobile shapes in which spiritism was represented in classic 
lands, we shall limit the present notice to a brief account 
of certain specialties not found in former sections, illus- 
trated by the famous mysteries of Eleusis, and the Sybil- 
line women of Greece. 

The Samothracian mysteries date back to the earliest 
periods of Grecian history, and attempts have been made 
to show, that in these veiled rites the use of the loadstone, 
the secret powers of electricity, and the twin fires of mag- 
netism were brought into play, and hence arose the wor- 
ship of the constellated Deities Castor and Pollux. 

There is little cotemporaneous evidence, however, to 
show that the Samothracians possessed any practical 
knowledge of mineral magnetism, or understood the use 
of the loadstone, although they cherished a deep and su- 
perstitious reverence for its mysterious properties of attrac- 
tion and repulsion. 

The highest and most elaborate rites, a knowledge ot 
which has descended to us from the days of antiquity, 
were those of Eleusis and Bacchus in Greece, and the 
Saturnalia of Rome. These, no less than the Samothra- 
cian rites, were unquestionably derived from Egypt, and 
as the Eleusinian mysteries probably afford the best repre- 
sentation of their famous Egyptian model, the Isic and 
Osiric mysteries, it is to a brief account of this famous 
pageant that we shall call our readers' attention. So much 
has been written in fragments concerning these great 
mysteries, and the general tone of every description so 



300 

invariably pre-supposes that the reader is already ac- 
quainted with the basic ideas upon which it discourses, 
that we deem it not out of place to present a consecutive 
statement of the myth, as well as the underlying princi- 
ples upon which these mysteries were founded. For this 
purpose we avail ourselves of an admirable edition of 
Taylor's Eleusinian and Bacchic rites, published by Dr. 
Alexander Wilder, of New York, in 1875. We quote 
an abridged account of the legend rendered by Minutius 
Felix, in Thomas Taylor's translation. This author says : 
'' ' Proserpina, the daughter of Ceres by Jupiter, as she 
was gathering tender flowers, in the new spring, was 
ravished from her delightful abodes by Pluto, and being 
carried from thence through thick woods, and over a length 
of sea, was brought by Pluto into a cavern, the residence 
of departed spirits, over whom she afterwards ruled with 
absolute sway. But Ceres, upon discovering the loss of 
her daughter, with lighted torches, and begirt with a ser- 
pent, wandered over the whole earth for the purpose of 
finding her, till she came to Eleusis ; there she found her 
daughter, and also taught to the Eleusinians the cultiva- 
tion of corn.' Now in this fable, Ceres represents the evo- 
lution of that intuitional part of our nature which we 
properly denominate intellect^ and Proserpina that living, 
self-moving, and animating part which we call soul. But 
in order to understand the secret meaning of this fable, it 
will be necessary to give a more explicit detail of the par- 
ticulars attending the abduction, from the beautiful poem 
of Claudian on this subject. From this elegant production 
we learn that Ceres, who was afraid lest some violence 
should be offered to Proserpina, on account of her inimit- 
able beauty, conveyed her privately to Sicily, and con- 
cealed her in a house built on purpose by the Cyclopes, 
while she herself directs her course to the temple of 



301 

Cybele, the mother of the Gods. Here then we see the 
first cause of the soul's descent, namely the abandoning of a 
life wholly according to the higher intellect, which is oc- 
cultly signified by the separation of Proserpina from Ceres. 
Afterward, we are told that Jupiter instructs Venus to go 
to this abode, and betray Proserpina from her retirement, 
that Pluto may be enabled to carry her away ; and to pre- 
vent any suspicion in the virgin's mind, he commands 
Diana and Pallas to go in company. The three Goddesses 
arriving, find Proserpina at work on a scarf for her 
mother ; in which she had embroidered the primitive 
chaos, and the formation of the world. Now by Venus 
in this part of the narration we must understand desire^ 
which, even in the celestial regions (for such is the resi- 
dence of Proserpina till she is ravished by Pluto), begins 
silently and stealthily to creep into the recesses of the 
soul. By Minerva we must conceive the rational power of 
the soul^ and by Diana, nature^ or the merely natural and 
vegetable part of our composition ; both which are now 
ensnared through the allurements of desire. And lastly, 
the web in which Proserpina had displayed all the fair 
variety of the material world, beautifully represents the 
commencement of the illusive operations through which 
the soul becomes ensnared with the beauty of imaginative 
forms. 

" Proserpina, forgetful of her parent's commands, is rep- 
resented as venturing from her retreat, through the treach- 
erous persuasions of Venus. 

" After this we behold her issuing on the plain with 
Minerva and Diana, and attended by a beauteous train of 
nymphs, who are evident symbols of the world of genera- 
tion, and are, therefore, the proper companions of the soul 
about to fall into its fluctuating realms. 

" But the design of Proserpina, in venturing from her re- 



302 

treat, is beautifully significant of her approaching descent ; 
for she rambles from home for the purpose of gathering 
flowers ; and this in a lawn replete with the most enchant- 
ing variety, and exhaling the most delicious odors. This 
is a manifest image of the soul operating principally ac- 
cording to the natural and external life, and so becoming 
effeminated and ensnared through the delusive attractions 
of sensible form. Minerva (the rational faculty in this 
case), likewise gives herself wholly to the dangerous em- 
ployment, and abandons the proper characteristics of her 
nature for the destructive revels of desire. 

" After this, Pluto, forcing his passage through the earth, 
seizes on Proserpina, and carries her away with him, not- 
withstanding the resistance of Minerva and Diana. They, 
indeed, are forbid by Jupiter, who in this place signifies 
Fate, to attempt her deliverance. 

" Pluto hurries Proserpina into the infernal regions : in 
other words, the soul is sunk into the profound depth and 
darkness of a material nature. A description of her mar- 
riage next succeeds her union with the dark tenement of 
the body. 

" Night is with great beauty and propriety introduced as 
standing by the nuptial couch, and confirming the oblivi- 
ous league. For the soul through her union with a mate- 
rial body becomes an inhabitant of darkness, and subject 
to the empire of night ; in consequence of which she 
dwells wholly with delusive phantoms, and till she breaks 
her fetters is deprived of the intuitive perception of that 
which is real and true. 

" The reader may observe how Proserpina, being repre- 
sented as confined in the dark recess of a prison, and bound 
with fetters, confirms the explanation of the fable here 
given as symbolical of the descent of the soul ; for such, as 
we have already largely proved, is the condition of the 



308 

soul from its union with the body, according to the uniform 
testimony of the most ancient philosophers and priests. 

" After this, the wanderings of Ceres for the discovery of 
Proserpina commence. Begirt with a serpent, and bearing 
two lighted torches in her hands, she commences her search 
by night in a car drawn by dragons. The tears and 
lamentations of Ceres, in her course, are symbolical both 
of the providential operations of intellect about a mortal 
nature, and iiie miseries with which such operations are 
attended. 

" These sacred rites occupied the space of nine days in 
their celebration ; and this, doubtless, because, according 
to Homer,* this Goddess did not discover the residence of 
her daughter till the expiration of that period. Hence the 
first day of initiation into these mystic rites was called 
agurmos^ i. e. according to Hesychius, an assembly, and all 
collecting together- : 

" After this, the soul falls from the tropic of Cancer into 
the planet Saturn ; and to this the second day of initiation 
was consecrated, when they called ' to the sea, ye initiated 
ones !' because, says Meursius, on that day the crier was 
accustomed to admonish the mystae to betake themselves 
to the sea. Now the meaning of this will be easily under- 
stood, by considering that, according to the arcana of the 
ancient theology, as may be learned from Proclus, the whole 
planetary system is under the dominion of Neptune. Hence 
when the soul falls into the planet Saturn, which Capeila 
compares to a river voluminous, sluggish, and cold, she then 
first merges herself into fluctuating matter, of which water 
is an ancient and significant symbol. But the eighth day 

* Hymn to Ceres. " For nine days did holy Demeter perambulate the earth . . 
and when the ninth shining morn had come, Hecate met her, bringing news.'' 

Apuleias also explains that at the initiation into the Mysteries of Isis the candi- 
date was enjoined to abstain from luxurious food for ten days, from the flesh of 
animals, and from wine. 



304 

of initiation, which is symbolical of the falling of the soul 
into the lunar orb, was celebrated by the candidates by a 
repeated initiation and second sacred rites ; because the soul in 
this situation is about to bid adieu to everything of a ce- 
lestial nature : to sink into a perfect oblivion of her divine 
origin and pristine felicity ; and to rush profoundly into the 
region of ignorance and error.* And lastly, on the ninth 
day, when the soul falls into the sublunary world and be- 
comes united with a terrestrial body, a libation was per- 
formed, such as is usual in sacred rites. Here the Initiates, 
filling two earthen vessels sacred to Bacchus, they placed 
one towards the east, and the other towards the west. And 
the first of these was doubtless, according to the interpret- 
ation of Proclus, sacred to the earth, and symbolical of 
the soul proceeding fi-om an orbicular figure, or divine form, 
into a conical defluxion and terrene situation : t but the 
other was sacred to the soul, and symbolical of its celestial 
origin ; since our intellect is the legitimate progeny of 
Bacchus. And this too was occultly signified by the po- 
sition of the earthen vessels ; for, according to a mundane 
distribution of the divinities, the eastern centre of the uni- 
verse, which is analogous to fire, belongs to Jupiter, and 
the western to Pluto, who governs the earth, because the 
west is allied to earth on account of its dark and nocturnal 
nature. 

"Again, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, the follow- 
ing confession was made by the new Initiate in these sacred 
rites, in answer to the interrogations of the Hierophant : 
« I have fasted ; I have drank the Cyceon ; I have taken 
out of the Cista, and placed what I have taken out into the 
Calathus ; and alternately I have taken out of the Cala- 
thus and put into the Cista.' 

* The condition most unlike the former divine estate. 

t An orbicular figure symbolized the maternal, and a cone the masculine divine 
Energy. 



305 

" We may easily perceive the meaning of the mystic con- 
fession, / have fasted ; I have drank a mingled potion^ etc.; 
for by the former part of the assertion, no more is meant 
than that the higher intellect, previous to imbibing of ob- 
livion through the deceptive arts of a corporeal life, ab- 
stains from all material concerns, and does not mingle itself 
with even the necessary delights of the body. And as to 
the latter part, it alludes to the descent of Proserpina to 
Hades, and her re-ascent to the abodes of her mother Ceres : 
that is, to the outgoing and return of the Soul, alternately 
falling into generation, and ascending thence into the intel- 
ligible world, and becoming perfectly restored to her divine 
and intellectual nature. For the Gista contained the most 
arcane symbols of the Mysteries, into which it was unlaw- 
ful for the profane to look. As to its contents,* we learn 
from the hymn of Callimachus to Ceres, that they were 
formed from gold, which, from its incorruptibility, is an 
evident symbol of an immaterial nature. And as to the 
Calathus, or basket, this, as we are told by Claudian, was 
filled with the spoils or fruits of the field, which are mani- 
fest symbols of a life corporeal and earthly. So that the 
candidate, by confessing that he had taken from the Cista, 
and placed what he had taken into the Calathus, and the 
contrary, occultly acknowledged the descent of his soul 
from a condition of being supra-material and immortal, in- 
to one material and mortal ; and that, on the contrary, by 
living according to the purity which the Mysteries incul- 
cated, he should re-ascend to that perfection of his nature, 
from which he had unhappily fallen." 

Throughout this curious fable it must be borne in mind 

* A golcleu serpent, an egg, and the phallus. The epopt looking upon-these, was 
rapt with awe as contemplating in the symbols the deeper mysteries of all life, or 
being of a grosser temper, took a lascivious impression. Thus as a, seer, he beheld 
with the eyes of sense or sentiment ; and the real apocalypse was therefore that 
made to himself of his own moral life and character. 



306 

that the Egyptians, Greeks, and all ancient as well as 
classic nations believed in the doctrines recited in the 
earlier sections of this work, namely : that the Soul had 
once existed in a purely spiritual state ; that, tempted by 
the demands of sense, it had yearned for mortal birth — 
descended or fallen into an earthly condition, and by its 
probationary sufferings and trials on earth, regained the 
Paradisaical bliss from which it had fallen (vide sections 
2 and 3). These ideas are represented in the myth of 
Proserpine, and constituted the chief legend of all the 
ancient mysteries. At the point, however, where our quo- 
tations cease, it is proper to state that the drama proceeds 
after a fashion, the direct simplicity of which is a part of 
that arcanum wherein the ancients represented the SouPs 
alliance with and birth into material form through earthly 
generation. 

The plainness of speech and characteristic nature of 
the symbols employed, would prove revolting to our mod- 
ern sense of propriety ; but most learned commentators 
admit that the ancients sought to strengthen the Soul 
against sensual indulgence by familiarizing the mind with 
ideas and forms connected with sensual rites. 

Jamblichus ex(;uses this part of the mysteries, and 
especially the dramatic scenes which depict the descent of 
the Soul into earth through human generation, by saying : 

" Exhibitions of this kind in the Mysteries were designed 
to free us from licentious passions, by gratifying the sight, 
and at the same time vanquishing desire, through the awful 
sanctity with which these rites were accompanied ; for the 
proper way of freeing ourselves from the passions is — first, 
to indulge them with moderation, by which means they 
become satisfied ; listen, as it were, to persuasion, and pas- 
sion may thus be entirely removed." 

The mysteries were divided into two sections, of which 



307 

the first or lesser m3^steries were mere rudimentary states, 
during which the Neophyte was supposed to undergo those 
embryonic conditions necessary to prepare him for the 
higher revelations of the great mysteries. In the first, 
the candidate was called a Mysta, or " veiled one ;'' in the 
second, he became an Epopta, or Seer, and was henceforth 
deemed exalted to the highest attainable knowledge of 
human life and destiny, and the highest condition of puri- 
ty which ceremonial rites could typify. 

The chief aim in these celebrations was to impress the 
Neophyte throughout, with the sacredness and divine sig- 
nificance of life, generation, the generative functions, and 
all the rites and symbols thereto belonging. 

The ministering Priests were all persons of the purest 
lives and most ascetic habits. Their garments and vessels 
were consecrated, their ornaments of the most splendid 
character, and " their performances dignified with a lofty 
bearing impossible to be described." All who took part in 
these rites were required to be of pure life and unspotted 
name. No notoriously evil doer could be admitted even 
to the lesser mysteries, and every candidate was required 
to observe long fasts, strict asceticism, prepare for the cere- 
monies by ablutions, and many purifications, and present 
themselves unspotted in mind, body and garments, and 
crowned with freshly gathered wreaths of myrtle. 

The Temple devoted to this purpose was vast and gor- 
geous. It was full of magnificent halls, solemn crypts, 
long galleries, winding passages ascending and descending, 
fearful precipices, steep rocks and gloomy caverns. 

The whole order of these wonderful buildings was de- 
signed to typify the procession of the Soul's spiritual ori- 
gin, descent into matter, its struggles, trials, temptations, 
new birth, final regeneration, and re-ascent to the supernal 
glories of the Elj^sian realms, from which it was assumed 



308 

to have fallen. During the rites, the Neophyte was con- 
ducted through scenes most terrible to endure, most tr^nng 
to all the senses. Sometimes he was enveloped in thick 
darkness, and assailed with shrieks, groans, wails and lam- 
entations, symbolical of the despairing condition of the lost 
Souls peering through flames and torments in the realms 
of Pluto. 

Peals of crashing thunder distracted him with terror; 
forked lightnings gleamed fitfully through darksome abodes, 
revealing the forms of hissing serpents, ferocious beasts, 
and sheeted spectres, doomed to perdition. One of the final 
scenes of this tremendous Drama, was the descent of the 
appalled Neophyte through a rifted rock designed to typify 
the Yoni, and thence through a rough and narrow cleft, 
the struggling victim emerged into a fearful and unknown 
realm, the perils of which he could only surmise by the 
awful stillness around him, broken by low groans and con- 
vulsive sobs, designed to signify the agonies of new birth, 
and a physical process of regeneration. Drawn through 
the sacred waters of a new baptism, and borne onward by 
invisible conductors, the half dead Initiate was left for 
awhile to repose after the tremendous struggle of final 
emergement through the stony matrix. It was unques- 
tionably from this great central idea of the ancient myste- 
ries that the Christians have derived their doctrines of the 
new birth and regeneration ; words which, to all but true 
Initiates, are merely words, and significant of nothing more 
than a senseless mystery. 

After the great final trial, the Soul, by passing through 
the allegorical new birth, was deemed to have become spot- 
less and innocent as a babe. Holy hymns were chanted, 
eloquent appeals to the Initiate's constancy and virtue 
were uttered ; he was ushered into a magnificent Temple, 
where a colossal image of the glorious Maternal Goddess 



309 

burst upon his sight, surrounded with all the pageantry and 
pomp of Grecian luxury, art, and splendor. Scenes of 
dazzling beauty and supernal glory opened upon his rav- 
ished vision. Exquisite representations of the Elysian 
fields allured him to ramble amidst their flowery glades. 
Forms of unearthly loveliness surrounded him ; strains of 
delicious music and songs of penetrating sweetness filled 
his soul with rapture, and lifted him up to ecstasy. 

Many of the noblest Sages of antiquity passing through 
these stupendous rites, have affirmed, that their ?yes be- 
held the forms of the Gods, looked upon heavenly scenes, 
dazzling suns, blazing stars, and figures of resplendent glory 
that were not of this earth. Visions of the blest in their 
abodes of Paradise glanced before them, and triumphant 
lyrics were heard chanted by no mortal lips. Why should 
we doubt these repeated assertions of the great, the wise, 
and the inspired ones of old '] On the contrary, is it pos- 
sible to imagine that any truly sensitive nature could par- 
take of such scenes without unfolding to a higher life and 
more exalted powers than they had ever enjoyed before ? 

The physical nature was under complete subjection. 
The magnetic life of powerful Adepts permeated the air, 
and filled the Temple with Astral light and life. 

The invocations, prayers and fervent aspirations poured 
forth by the Neophytes, must have charged the Temple 
spaces with Soul aura, and transformed it into a spirit 
sphere. If there was a spark of luminosity in the Souls 
of those who toiled through these tremendous initiatory 
processes, they must have been enkindled into celestial 
tlame then or never, and it is equally impossible to con- 
ceive of the existence of spiritual realms, and suppose 
their inhabitants were not attracted to their earthly loves, 
and the subjects of their tenderest care and ministry in 
these hours of exaltation and trial. The Soul's powers 



310 

must have been quickened, the spiritual senses must have 
been awakened, and it could not be otherwise than a 
true season of new birth or regeneration. 

And thus it was that so many Initiates came forth from 
these mysteries changed both in body and mind ; hence, 
that so many regarded them with a reverence unspeakable, 
and memories so hallowed, that it left an impress on the 
entire of their after lives. Neither can we wonder that it 
was the policy of governments to uphold these sacred 
mysteries; of legislators to constitute them one of the 
most essential portions of ancient theocratic institutions. 

Amidst all the temptations to linger in description which 
the graceful imagery, sparkling fancy and abundant 
Mythology of Greek Spiritism abounds with, we are only 
privileged to pause for one more notice, and that is of the 
famous Sibylline women by whom the Oracles of Greece 
were delivered for so many centuries, and for this purpose 
we select a few excerpts from a comprehensive and au- 
thentic sketch, taken from the Western Star before quoted, 
and written by the fluent pen of Emma Hardinge Brit- 
ten : 

The Cumcemi Sihyl, and the Pythia of Delphi. 

'' Some classical authors have limited the number of 
Sibyls to four, but the generality of ancient writers give a 
list of ten, to whom they assign names according to the 
countries of their birth. Varro thus enumerates them : 

" The Delphian, — elder and younger ; the Cimerian, and 
two Sibyls, both named Erythraen ; the Samian, the Cu- 
msean ; the Hellespontian, the Phrygian, and the Tiburt- 
ine. Of all these, the Cumsean and the Delphian have been 
the most renowned. It is to the Cumaean Sibyl that is at- 
tributed the authorship of the famous Sibylline books, the 
sale of which to King Tarquinius, by an unknown old 



321 

Puck-like tricks and pretty vagaries of these moonlight 
haunting phantoms, and the world of poetry and imagina- 
tive literature will miss a rare streak of sunshine from the 
dreary paths of dry matter-of-fact narrative, when plain 
common sense shall begin to realize the duty of extinguish- 
ing " the idle superstition" of Fairy lore. 

Besides these charming " little people," whole nations 
of half-aerial, half-earthly beings, of a kindred character, 
have been ranked in the third class of Elementaries, espe- 
cially by the Scots, North Britons and Scandinavians. Such 
are the Trolls, Nixies and Brownies, to say nothing of the 
Pigmies, who inhabit the lowest parts of the earth ; also 
the Gnomes and Kobolds, a good-natured but very low 
type of being, who are said to dwell in mines, caverns, 
crypts where hidden treasures abound, and places where 
metals are hid. These dwarfish beings were always repre- 
sented as kindly-disposed towards humanity, and especially 
prompt to aid miners and other treasure-seekers in discov- 
ering the object of their search. Sometimes they were 
malign, and strove to hinder rather than assist humanity, 
guarding their earthly treasures with jealous care, and 
using mysterious arts to baffle the seekers for buried wealth ; 
but, as a general rule, all miners who are not too strong- 
minded to reject the idea of such spirits, unite in declaring 
that these sub-mundane dwarfs actually exist; that the 
workmen often encounter them, and that many of them 
have been guided by their friendly lights, or directed by 
the sounds of their invisible hammers to the best mineral 
" leads." The author is in possession of a vast mass of testi- 
mony on this subject, some collected from experiences in 
Hungarian, Bohemian and Cornish mines, in which he has 
himself partaken ; others gathered from reliable sources, 
containing narratives of the many kind acts of warning 
against danger, and guidance for good, miners have re- 
ceived from these subterranean Elementaries. 



322 

There are several still lower classes of impish beings, 
who correspond to various species of animals and reptiles, 
and these, though possessing hardly any traits of intel- 
ligence — except such as are peculiar to the creatures of 
whom they are the spiritual types — for the most part de- 
light in mischief, and are ready when summoned to aid 
human beings, as low in the scale as themselves, in work- 
ing ill to others. 

In the ghastly records of mediaeval witchcraft, this class 
of Elementaries were known as Vampires^ IncuM ancid Suc- 
cuhi. 

They were supposed to parasite on the bodies of the 
Witches whom they served, acting as their " Imps or Fa- 
miliars," in return for the nourishment afforded them, and 
the caresses they received. There can be no doubt that 
the most absurd and wild exaggerations have arisen, con- 
cerning the supposed communion between Demons, and 
poor degraded mortals, whose ignorance, helplessness, and 
perhaps the involuntary exercise of those occult powers, 
which often manifest themselves in low types of humanity, 
have rendered them obnoxious to the charge of witchcraft. 

To accept the literal truth, of all the revolting tales of 
such demonic intercourse, would be a libel upon human 
nature, but to deny that strong and irresistible sympathies 
exist between the visible and invisible realms, uniting alike 
the spirits of the lower as well as the higher orders of being 
with man, would be to accept the truth so flattering to 
pious egotism, of angelic ministry, and blind our eyes to 
that unpleasing correlative, which binds up man with the 
lower grades of being, and thus combines the whole scale in 
one interblended chain of harmonic dependency. 

As it is above^ so it is belozv — On earth as in the skies. 
The Universe is an endless chain of worlds in which spi- 
ritual spheres above, and semi-spiritual spheres below. 



311 

woman (supposed to have been the Sibyl herself) all clas- 
sical historians have frequently mentioned. These books 
were nine in number when first tendered for sale to the 
king. When he refused to purchase them, the old woman 
threw three of them into the fire, and returning to the 
king, demanded the same price as before for the remaining 
six. The offer being still refused, the unknown destroyed 
three more of her singular wares, and again returning, de- 
manded the same price for the three, which she had asked 
in the first instance for the whole nine. Struck with the 
oddity of this proceeding, Tarquinius paid the price de- 
manded, but no sooner beca,me possessed of the books, than 
the old woman who had sold them disappeared. 

On examination, the contents of the volumes proved to 
be the vaticinations of the renowned Sibyls, and so great 
was the value set upon these writings, that Tarquinius ap- 
pointed two officials, especially charged with the duty of 
guarding them, and only permitting them to be inspected 
and consulted by duly constituted authorities, in seasons of 
great national emergency. Notwithstanding the high re- 
spect with which the Sibylline writings were regarded, the 
original volumes purchased by Tarquinius were destroyed 
by fire. Other monarchs caused fresh collections to be 
made, and the most careful researches were instituted to 
gather up and preserve all the Sibylline writings extant. 
Notwithstanding this, several succeeding collections shared 
the fate of their predecessor ; so it is fair to conclude that 
the voluminous mass of books attributed to the Sibyls, and 
quoted by the early Christian, as well as heathen authors 
in support of their favorite dogmas, contained as many in- 
terpolations as genuine writings ; indeed, it is questionable 
whether any of the original Sibylline vaticinations sur- 
vived the wreck of fire and revolution, which consumed 
the most valuable records of those stormy times. On the 



312 

qaesiion of the number of those whom hi.story has desig- 
nated the Sibyls, there can be no doubt but that many 
prophetic women, who succeeded each other in the temple 
services of different districts, were called by the same 
name, so that, in fact, the classification of Varro, given 
above, applies rather to the places with which they were 
associated, than to the actual limitation of their numbers. 
There seems to have been some points of difference be- 
tween the Priestesses, the Pythia of Delphi, wandering 
Prophetesses, and the personages mentioned as Sibyls. The 
fact that so many women of antiquity manifested prophetic 
powers, and were so frequently endowed with the faculty 
of rendering oracular responses under the afflatus of what 
was deemed ' Divine inspiration, ' renders it a task of some 
difficulty to discriminate amongst the variety of powers 
from which they derived celebrity." 

" Virgil, in describing the Cumaean Sibyl, says she was 
born in the district of Troy, but went to Italy, where for a 
time she dwelt in a cavern in the vicinity of the Avernian 
lake. 

'■'■ She sometimes wrote her oracles upon palm leaves, 
which she laid at the entrance of her cave, suffering the 
winds to scatter them, and bear them whither the Gods 
directed. At other times, she gave responses orally to those 
who came to consult her, and many chapters could be 
written on the marvelous accuracy of her prophecies, and 
the remarkable lucidity with which she delivered her de- 
scriptions of distant persons and things. In writing of this 
' Sacred Maid,' as he styles her, Virgil gives the following 
well-known delineation of her ' Corybantic' modes of pro- 
phesying : 

" Aloud she cries, 
' This is the time ! inquire your destinies ! 
He comes ! Behold the god !' Thus, while she said, 
And shiv'ring at the sacred entry staid, 



313 



Her color changed, her face was uot the same, 
Aud hollow groans from her deep spirit came ; 
Her hair stood up, convulsive rage possessed 
Her trembling limbs, and heaved her laboring breast. 
Grreater than human kind she seemed to look, 
And with an accent more than mortal spoke. 
Her staring eyes with sparkling fury roll, 
And all the God came rushing on her soul. 
Struggling in vain, impatient of her load, 
And laboring underneath the ponderous God. 
The more she strove to shake him from her breast, 
With more and far superior force he pressed, 
Commands his entrance, and without contest 
Usurps her organs, and inspires her soul." 

Drydens Translation of ^neis, Book VI. 

'' This Curnsen Sibyl declares of herself : 

" I am entirely on the stretch, and my body is so stupefied that I do not know 
what I say, but the God commands me to speak : Why must I publish my song to 
every one ? and when my spirit rests, after the divine hymn, the God commands 
me to vaticinate (prophesy) again. I know the number of the grains of sand, and 
the measure of the sun. I know the height of the earth, and the number of men. 
stars, trees, and beasts. " 

" The Cumsean Sibyl, amongst other very important 
prophecies, foretold that terrific eruption of Vesuvius, in 
which Pliny, the naturalist, is said to have perished, and 
so many cites were destroyed. She wrote, besides, many 
books which were held in the highest veneration by the 
Romans, and is supposed to have been the original of the 
fine statue which was placed in the temple of Jupiter Capi- 
tolinus, representing her holding one of her famous Sibyl- 
line books in her hand. 

'■'• Passing over the vivid descriptions rendered by Plu- 
tarch, Varro, Heraclides, and others, of the various Sibyls 
of other names, we must now draw a slight sketch of the 
famous Pythia of Delphi, who, whether one or many, has 
been more widely renowned for demonstrating the fact of 
prophetic power than any other name in history, the 
Cumsean Sibyl alone excepted. 

" The small town of Delphi, in Phocis, would never have 



314 

attained any celebrity from its situation or commercial 
importance, had it not been the site of one of the most 
renowned of all the Grecian oracles — that of the Apollo 
of Delphi. 

'' The site of the once magnificent temple, so famed for 
its Pythian oracle, is at the northwestern extremity of the 
town, built on the slope of the beautiful mountain called 
Parnassus. 

" Shutting in the crescent-like inclosure which comprises 
the ancient site of Delphi, is a vast mountain, split 
asunder, apparently by volcanic action, and piesenting two 
high peaks or cliffs, which the Greeks called ' The 
Brothers.' It is from this circumstance that the town is 
supposed to have derived the name of Delphi or Adel- 
phus. From the cleft which divides these two gigantic 
peaks, tlows out the far-famed Castalian Spring ; and here 
tradition asserts that Apollo and the nine Muses, to whom 
the spring was dedicated, endowed those who drank of, 
or bathed in its cool, translucent waters, with the gifts of 
prophecy, musical and poetical inspiration. 

"On the spot which subsequently became the centre of 
the gorgeous temple of Apollo, formerly yawned a deep 
cavern, from which issued those strange mephitic vapors 
which were supposed to exercise so powerful an influence 
in preparing the Pythia for the possession of the oracular 
god. All authors of the time declare that the cavern was 
charged with vapors of that peculiar quality which excited 
a species of frenzy in animals, and delirious ecstasy in the 
human beings who inhaled it. 

"The discovery of these remarkable properties in the 
cavern was due, it is alleged, to a goat-herd, who, noticing 
how wild and frantically his flock leaped about after stray- 
ing into the entrance, made his way into its recesses, and 
was afterwards found in the frenzied condition couimon to 



315 

all who ventured within its charmed precincts. After the 
spot had attracted general attention, and become in that 
superstitious age venerated for its mysterious power of 
evoking the spirit of " vaticination" or prophecy, it was 
set apart as a hallowed place. The priests of Apollo de- 
clared it wa.s the choice dwelling-place of the God, and 
that the utterance of those who resorted thither, and came 
under the influence of " the divine fury," were henceforth 
to be regarded as prophetic, and their ravings received as 
oracular. 

"It must be remembered that it was the universal belief 
of the time, that the ravings of lunacy were prophetic, 
and denoted the possession of some God ; hence it is not 
surprising that a place capable of producing upon all 
comers the afflatus so highly reverenced should be regarded 
as holy, and become the scene of those superstitious rites 
common to the time and country. As it was found 
that little else tlian wild coafusion and unintellisrible 
ravings resulted from permitting the cavern to become a 
place of universal resort, the Phocian authorities com- 
manded that a maiden of pure life and unspotted character 
should be selected, who was brought to the sacred spot, 
immersed in the waters of the Castalian Spring, arrayed 
in white, crowned with laurels, and required to perform 
divers other ceremonies of purification and preparation. 
When this was done, the priests of Apollo held the 
' Pythia,' as she was termed, over the entrance of the 
cavern, and, provided she could endure the inhalation of 
the exhalations without permanent loss of reason, or, as it 
more than once happened, without yielding up life itself 
in the frantic convulsions which sometimes ensued, the 
novitiate was deemed the elect of the God, and duly in- 
stalled as his priestess, by taking her seat on a tripod or 



316 

basin, with three ears of gold, placed at the entrance to 
the cavern. 

" Plutarch alleges that the first and most celebrated Pythia 
who served the Delphic oracle was a beautiful young coun- 
try girl named Sibylla, from the district of Libya. It is 
probable that from this acient prophetess was derived the 
name of Sibyl, afterwards conlierred on all her class. In 
later years it was found necessary to select women of 
mature, and sometimes of advanced age, to serve the ora- 
cle, the sacred character of their profession having been 
found insufficient to protect the Pythia from the licentious- 
ness of the age. Plutarch, writing of this inspired woman, 
says : 

" We derive immense advantage^! from the favor the Gods have conceded to her. 
She and the priestess of Dodona confer on mankind the greatest benefits, both 
public and private. 

•' It would be impossible to enumerate all the instances in which the Pythia 
proved her power of foretelling events, and the facts themselves are so well and 
generally known, that it would be useless to bring forth new evidences. She is 
second to no one in purity of morals and chastity of conduct. Brought up by her 
poor parents in the country, she brings with her neither art nor experience, nor 
any talent whatever, when she arrives at Delphi, to be the interpreter of the God. 
She is consulted on all accounts — marriage, travels, harvest, disease, etc., etc. 
Her answers, though submitted to the severest scrutiny, have never proved false 
or incorrect. On the contrary, the verification of them has filled the temple with 
gifts from all parts of Greece and foreign countries." 

" A gentleman, who once resided at the spot* so venerat- 
ed as the seat of divine inspiration, furnishes us with some 
descriptions of the wild region which was the scene of the 
Cumaean Sibyl's vaticinations. He says : 

■ " The Lake of Avernus was once the extinct crater of a mighty volcano, and 
the whole region, though now fertilized by its waters, bears the marks of being 
fire-scarred, and presents a most gloomy and repulsive appearance. The clefts in 
the savage rocks abound with caverns exhaling mephitic vapors and bituminous 
odors. It was in one of the wildest, grandest, yet most awe-inspiring gorges of 
these mountains, that the cavern existed which tradition affirms to have been the 
dwelling of the Cumsean Sibyl. The scattered inhabitants of the surrounding 
district believed that this gloomy grotto was the entrance to the nether world ; 

* The author of Art Magic. 



317 

that the hammers of the Titaus, working in the might}' laboratories of the Plu- 
tonic realms, might be heard, ever and anon, reverberating through the thick and 
sullen air. The dark waters of the gloomy lake were supposed to communicate 
directly with the silent flow of the river of death, the Lethean stream, made 
dreadful by the apparitions of unblest spirits who floated from the Avernian shores 
to the realms of eternal night and torture. Here dwelt the famous Cumeean Sibyl, 
and from the exhalations of those poisonous regions, fatal to the birds that at- 
tempted to wing their way through its burdened airs, or the living creatures that 
strayed amidst its savage wilds, this weird woman derived that fierce ecstasy in 
which she wrote and raved of the destiny of nations, the fate of armies, the down- 
fall of kingdoms, and the decay of dynasties. 

" Monarchs and statesmen shaped their acts by her sublime counsels. The se- 
crets of the unwritten future were mapped out to her far-seeing eyes, as on an 
open page. 

" The purposes of the Gods were made known to her as if she had been their 
counselor, and the inexorable fates revealed, through her lips, the flecrees in which 
thrones and empires crumbled into dust, as though she had been the mouthpiece 
of the Eternal One. 

" The mournful regions of the Avernian Lake were in strange contrast to the 
equally celebrated, but far more attractive scenes consecrated to the oracle of the 
Sun-God, in the delightful country of the Delphian Pythia. 

"All travellers agree that the neighborhood of Mount Pai'nassus and the beau- 
tiful Castalian Spring is of a much more genial character, sparkling, as it is, with 
the sunlight, and fragrant with bloom, yet there is, to my mind, an evident con- 
nection between the influences of the exhalations derived from the Avernian and 
Delphic caverns. The chasm, so famed as the scene of the Pythia's utterances, is 
now no longer to be seen. The superb temple of Apollo was so built as to inclose, 
and secure it from the approach of the vulgar, and at this day no sign of such a 
chasm is visible ; but there are many clefts in the rocks, and one in especial, 
which forms a deep cavern, into which I have myself penetrated as far as I dared ; 
but as I descended, clinging to its rugged sides, with the intention of exploring it, 
I noticed the exhalations which arose from it, and soon found that they were be- 
ginning to produce upon me the same efi"ect as the inhalation of nitrous oxide 
(laughing) gas. The following day I visited that and two other caverns piercing 
the mountains in the same direction, and by applying chemical tests to the vapors 
exhaling from within, I found my suspicions confirmed, and am convinced there 
are chemicals in these regions which continually generate nitrous oxide gas." 

" The stately forms of the Sibyls have vanished from the 
earth. The white-robed priest and the vestal virgin no 
longer float through multitudes of adoring votaries, as me- 
diums between a race of Gods and men. The altar fires of 
the temples are quenched, the colossal forms of marble 
deities overthrown ; the oracles are dumb, and the hooks of 
the Sibyls all consumed in the whelming flames of time and 
change. 



318 

" The bowers of Grecian myrtle and rose are choked up 
with trailing weeds, and the voluptuous shade of the lau- 
rel groves are deepened into an unbroken night of rank 
vegetation. Faded beauty, and living ugliness, death, 
ruin, and decay, occupy the stately seats of ancient devo- 
tion, and the sunlight of inspiration seems to have gilded 
the purple and gold peaks of Parnassus for the last time ; 
but the cup of inspiration, run dry in classic Greece, is 
flowing full and abundantly in newer, happier lands. 

" The links which bind the mortal and immortal, torn 
asunder by the catastrophies of war and desolation, in an- 
cient lands, have stretched out into telegraphic lines be- 
tween the worlds of spirit and humanity ; and though the 
modern medium can never till the place which the Sibyl 
of antiquity occupied in sublimity of inspiration, in ro- 
mantic lore and heathen splendor, she is sufficient for the 
age she lives in ; sufficient to bring to a cold and material- 
istic world the undoubted proofs of the soul's immortality, 
and the fatherhood of the one universal God who is a 
Spirit." 



319 



PART III. 




SECTION XVII. 

Elementary and Planetary Spirits or Sub-Mundane and 
Super- Mundane Spiritism. 

In entering upon the third and concluding portion' of 
this volume, it becomes necessary that we should explain 
to our readers what were the opinions cherished by the 
mystics of all ages, concerning the existence and influence 
upon earth of other than human spirits. 

Ancient Theosophy in every land taught the existence 
of Spirits, both higher and lower than those of earth's 
inhabitants. 

The Jewish Cabala, which, as we have before alleged, 
contains the sum of opinions derived from Persia and 
Chaldea, and in all probability from still older lands, 
teaches that besides the Angels and Archangels, who in- 
clude many celestial orders, there are between men and 



320 

the lowest condition of fallen or evil angels intermediary 
Spirits termed Schedim^ who live in the elements, and were 
divided into four orders corresponding to Fire, Air, Earth 
and Water. 

The first class belonged to the Fire, and in German 
Theosophy were termed " Salamanders." They were 
supposed to be wise, powerful and prophetic, partaking 
ver}^ nearly of the angelic nature, yet not sufficiently ad- 
vanced in the scale of being, to become immortal. It was 
deemed that they knew many of the secrets of nature, and 
to those towards whom they were beneficently inclined, 
they would impart their knowledge freely. They were 
sometimes said to be fierce and even terrible in their 
wrath, and hence were as much dreaded as courted by the 
ancient Magians. The second class were spirits who par- 
took of the fiery quality of the first order, but were more 
properly, spirits of the air. The Scandinavian and Teu- 
tonic traditions simply define them as spirits of the earth, 
but give them a wide range of class and function, and 
represent them generally as dangerous and very capri- 
cious. 

It is in this order that mediaeval Theosophists ranged 
the sweetest and most popular of all the Elementaries, 
those of whom so many poets have sung, and traditions 
celebrated — the Elves or Fairies — those moonlight loving 
Sprites whose tiny feet leave their imprint on the green 
sward in magic rings — those impersonated blossoms of the 
earth and air, on whose fantastic and half mythical exist- 
ence so many thousands of epics have been founded, so 
many charming legends written. For ages these fascinat- 
ing sprites have served as the inspiration of the musician's 
sweetest strains, the sculptor's fairest e ; f . fuid the paint- 
er's chef-cPoeuvres. Even the royal mind of Shakespeare 
stooped to revel amidst the liowers and bloom, the merry 



323 

stretch away from the lowest tones of bein^ to the highest, 
in which embryonic life is swarming upwards to manhood, 
as man himself aspires to spiritual existence beyond. In 
this wonderful Oratorio of Creation, every key-note struck 
by man, finds an echo in the cavernous depths below, and 
awakens vibratory harmonies in the corridors of heaven 
above. 

Spirits and angels are attracted to the necessities of hu- 
manity ; elementaries reach up to sustain themselves by 
man's superior endowments. If on the other hand he de- 
scends by the indulgence of animal passions, or sensual ten- 
dencies, to the lower realms of being, can it be questioned 
that the creatures who derive influence and influx from 
man, should be ready to respond to him in those particular 
directions, to which their own instincts and impulses 
point 1 The only questions that can legitimately arise in 
this connection are these. Do such beings as Elementaries 
exist at all *? and can they communicate and hold inter- 
course with man '? If the reiterated assertions of Sages, 
Seers, Prophets, and Philosophers, in the antique and mid- 
dle ages, be worth acceptance as testimony, — if the expe- 
rience of modern Mystics and Seers, whose prejudices do 
not interfere to prevent their reception of any form of 
truth, deserve credit, then do these Elementaries exist — 
swarm through all departments of nature, manifest their 
presence, and become the willing subjects of human beings 
when the conditions for intercourse are open to them. 
The gradations of elementary existence extend, as we have 
before intimated, down to the very lowest depths. There 
are beings whose rude embryonic life corresponds to the 
lowest species of plants, earths, stones, metals, and miner- 
als. 

There are also two classes of watery spirits, namely ; 
those who inhabit marshy lands, ^stagnant pools, ditches, 



324 

and still water ; and another of a higher type who govern 
rivers, fountains, seas, ocean depths, and all kinds of run- 
ning waters. These were anciently called " Tritons, Mer- 
maids, Mermen, and Undines." The Earthty and Watery 
Elementaries were assumed by the Cabala to be governed 
by a powerful Chief termed Asmodi. They were taught 
of in all lands and in all times, and though different na- 
tions assign to them varieties of names, and functions as 
numerous as the varieties of matter, there is in all the 
legendary accounts rendered of them, a generic similitude, 
which leaves no doubt that one basic idea prevails through 
all. 

As the Author emphatically renders in his testimony of 
belief to the existence of an intermediary class of beings, 
termed with great propriety Elementaries, we shall drop 
the tone of traditionary description, and enter upon that 
more suited to convey an idea of actual realities. 

The Elementaries are neither wholly spiritual, nor en- 
tirely material in substance. The corporeity of their 
bodies is too dense to inhabit the spirit spheres, or consort 
with purely spiritual existences, yet not sufficiently palpa- 
ble to become visible to material eyes, or the external 
senses of man. They inhabit strata of atmospheres infi- 
nitely more sublimated than gases, yet far less refined 
than pure Astral light. They correspond in the infinitude 
of their states and functions to every particle of matter 
that exists, from the most solid crystal to the most rarefied 
gas. We claim in short, that for every material body, 
animate or inanimate, organized or inorganic, there is a 
correspondential realm of spiritual existence — a counter- 
part in every stage of being. The disembodied Souls of 
men are the counterparts to man himself — the Elementa- 
ries to the world of matter, including the animal, vegeta- 
ble and mineral kingdoms. The two highest classes of 



325 

these beings, possess a fine ethereal sensitive spirit, yet not 
one whose organization is sufficiently perfected to become 
self-conscious, after the span of their earthly lives ter- 
minates, hence, they are not, strictly speaking, immortal. 
The same rem.arks apply in a measure to the two lower 
classes, although their vital or animating principle is infe- 
rior to the " Sylphs and Salamanders ;" in fact, they are 
little more than animal, vegetable and mineral existences, 
with strong and powerful instincts in the special realms of 
nature to which they belong, but incapable of reason, re- 
flection or self-knowledge. From tlie highest to the low- 
est these beings are aware of the existence of man ; they 
honor and even reverence him as a God, and are drawn by 
a mysterious instinct to desire contact and association with 
him. The highest orders understand the nature of con- 
tinued existence, passionately long for it, intuitively hope 
for it in some distant realms of beiug, and closely connect 
the idea of immortality with man, hence their yearning 
for intercourse with him, and their general desire to serve 
and oblige him. There seems to be a descending scale of 
moral as well as mental and physical inferiority amongst 
these intermediary existences, for the finer, purer and 
more kindly traits of character diminish, and at last utterly 
merge into ferocity, mischief and soulless animation, as we 
descend through the various grades of Elementary life. 

These beings are all embryotic and rudimentary, but 
whilst the highest grades obviously prophesy of man — 
modelling after him, though always lacking his complete- 
ness, and always deficient in some part, organ, or function 
— the lower we descend, the more rudimental becomes 
each type. It would be difficult to convey an idea of the 
localities occupied by this wonderful realm of existence, to 
those Scientists who are accustomed to divide the world of 
matter into solids, fluids, gases, ether, and perhaps the still 



326 

finer element so vaguely termed '' Electricity ;" but sup- 
posing we were to add to these subdivisions . one hundred, 
then one thousand more, and then multiply that number 
by the largest sum in mathematics, we might conclude by 
affirming, that Science had still failed to lind the two ex- 
tremes of solidity and rarefaction any more than the larg- 
est telescope and the most powerful microscope now in 
existence, have traced the finalities of the infinitely 
large, and the infinitely little, or the gold-beater with all 
the tenuity of his finest work has nrrived at the last point 
of divisibility in the atom. 

Permeating all space, interpenetrating even man's dense 
world of solids, fluids, and gases, is a realm whose ethereal 
sublimations, the explorations of science have never yet 
mastered. Vitalizing this material world of ours as the 
Soul animates the body, this substantial yet invisible spir- 
itual kingdom sustains all the countless generations of 
human souls, that have been liberated by death from the 
encasements of the mortal structure. Between this realm 
of pure Astral light, with all its freight of living spirits, 
clothed in bodies of the same imperishable element, is a 
still denser realm, neither as gross as the earth's atmos- 
phere, nor as sublimated as the spirit land, and yet it par- 
takes of the quality and essence of both, inheres in both, 
and is indissolubly connected with both, for between the 
rarefactions of the one, and the density of the other, float 
those strata of element which form the world of the em- 
bryotic beings of whom we have been writing. 

Away up be3^ond the sunny paths cleft by the wing of 
the soaring eagle ; deep down amidst the cities of pearl and 
kingdoms of coral that pave the ocean floor ; burrowing in 
the unexplored depths of the cavernous rocks where mile 
upon mile of mountain limestone and crystalline granite 
combine to form the overarching roof of the fire king's cas- 



327 

tie ; in all, through all, everywhere, in every unit of space, 
there roll the waves, and float the winds of the country in- 
habited by the Elementaries, so that could the eyes of mor- 
tality be opened as were those of the Jewish boy of old, in 
response to the prayer of Elisha, they would gaze upon 
oceans and seas of living creatures, finer than the Infu- 
soria, larger than the fabled giants, — each in his place, in 
his town, city, nation, divided off into his peculiar realm, 
inhabiting each his special portion of the kingdom to which 
he belongs, the whole constituting the realm of the Ele- 
mentaries. 

These creatures cannot ordinarily see mortals, any more 
than they can in turn be seen. Some amongst them en- 
dowed with finer instincts than others, can peer into the 
rifts and rents of matter, and looking through, behold the 
God-like world of humanity, just as prophetic clear-eyed 
men can — at special moments of lucidity — gaze upon spirit 
land. Also they can be invoked, much after the fashion 
that mortals employ in summoning human spirits. Magi- 
cians — especially those who have prepared themselves for 
the control of spirits — can summon the Elementaries and 
cause them to appear as readily as human spirits. The 
powers of the Elementaries are limited to the peculiar de- 
partments of nature to which they belong. The beings 
who inhabit woods, forests, and rural scenes, attach them- 
selves to huntsmen, charcoal burners, and others similarly 
employed. 

Miners, fishermen, sailors, florists, metallurgists, all in- 
dividuals who find their spheres of labor, in special depart- 
ments of nature, are surrounded by Elementary Spirits of a 
correspondential character. Persons of peculiar tempera- 
ments too, attract different grades of Elementaries, and 
thus, some are specially attractive to spirits of the fire, 
others to the aerial, earthly, or watery spirits, just as the 



328 

idiosyncrasies of their organisms dispose them. It may be 
asked, how these beings are attracted to mortals, if there 
is no sensuous perception between the two worlds. Again 
we are at a loss to find analogies by which to explain to an 
age, totally insensible to metaphysical laws, the intense 
and irresistible sympathies which bind up the different 
objects in nature, prevailing between man and all lower as 
well as higher existences, diffusing a kind of blind con- 
sciousness even through the lowest classes of inorganic 
matter. How tenderly does the blossom turn to the light. 
How will the atoms of matter seek their chemical affinities, 
exhibiting even their preferences, dropping one class of 
metal, and rushing to another as soon as their favorite ap- 
proaches ! 

Who instructs the sea-gull of the impending storm ''^ 
Who apprizes the terrified animals and fluttering birds, 
that an earthquake is at hand, and what kind hand closes 
up the cups of the flowers when the last sunbeam has dis- 
appeared, or warns them to open their shining petals to 
its return 1 Consider above all, the nameless and inde- 
scribable realm of antipathies and attractions, between 
which our whole system of society and companionship 
oscillates, and then we may begin to comprehend how the 
half spiritual half corporeal creatures of the elements ap- 
prehend the presence of man ; are drawn to kindred 
natures, or repelled from antagonistic ones ; revel in the 
atmospheres of special temperaments, and are driven off 
from others, as men shrink from contact with uncongenial 
companions. In the higher teachings of wise spirits, 
we learn that these Elementaries are born, and die, marry, 
propagate their species and rear their young, even as mor- 
tals do. As they die out of earth they are born into some 
other spheres, alternating between spirit spheres and 
earths, until they arrive at that state of perfect self-con- 



329 

scioLisne.ss which antedates their birth into those fully- 
completed organisms capable of maintaining an immortal 
existence. Many of the higher orders of Elementaries 
attracted in the first instance by sympathy, have become 
the tutelary spirits of certain distinguished families, and 
continue their protective care for succeeding generations. 
This is the origin of what has so generally been deemed 
an idle superstition — like the '^ Banshee" of Ireland, the 
vision of an armed knight, a weeping woman, a white 
spectre, the unlooked for appearance of white pigeons, 
lambs, or other unaccountable apparitions, preceding death, 
sickness, or calamity, the traditions of which have been 
handed down through ail time, although it has become 
the fashion to sneer the actualities out of orthodox accept- 
ance. 

The Red Indians of North America are especially dis- 
tinguished for guardianship of this character. 

Before entering upon the duties of leadership to their 
tribes, their young men retire into the wilderness to fast 
and pray. For the space of nine days the bravest and 
best of these wild races have been accustomed thus to 
await in solemn preparation, the visits of their tutelary 
spirits, and the direction of their future path in life. The 
author has conversed with many of the ancient men of 
these Indian tribes, and they have invariably confirmed 
the report which all tradition alleges namely ; that the 
spirits who appear to the young men during, or after the 
probationary days of their long fast, aj-e seldom human., but 
though they communicate after the fashion of human 
speech, or else infuse thoughts into the mind by the process 
of inspiration, their Ibrms are generally those of birds, 
beasts, or some member of the lower kingdoms. During 
several of their ceremonial rites at which the author has 
been present, their " Jokassids" or Prophets have succeeded 



330 

in summoning around them powerful spirits who could play 
instruments, shake their lodges, beat drums, and create the 
wildest clamor of unearthly voices ; and in all such scenes 
the spiritual performers were scarcely ever seen by 
clairvoyants, or known by mediums, to wear a human 
form. They were often wise in counsel, always prophetic, 
and very mighty ; — good to their Prophets, subtle in knowl- 
edge of healing, and always faithful to those whom they 
chose to protect, but still these children of the forest see 
them, hear their voices, and hold inspirational communion 
with them, not as with the spirits of their friends and 
kindred, whom they also profess to see and converse with, 
but as tutelary spirits — " spirits of nature " — or as we pre- 
fer to call them, Elementaries. 

Another marked and distinctive sphere in which these 
Elementaries have played their part, has been in the 
scenes of mingled ignorance, superstition and spiritual af- 
flatus, termed " Obsession." 

During some of those periods of moral and mental epi- 
demic in which vast waves of Astral fluid swept over cer- 
tain districts, kindling up into abnormal prominence the 
latent powers of mediumistic persons, and by sympathetic 
contagion communicating their influence to whole commu- 
nities, the Elementaries, like the spirits of Earth, have 
found themselves brought into direct and open rapport with 
human beings. 

Conditions already prepared broke down the barriers 
between the three worlds. 

The Elementaries, Mortals, and Spirits, steeped in cy- 
clones of Astral light, blowing over the Earth just as 
storms, tempests, and contagious airs traverse its surface, 
have become at times so curiously interblended, that they 
could neither one nor the other resist the attractions that 
involved them. These were the periods marked as the 



331 

eras of witchcraft, ecstasy, great religious revivals, or 
moral revolutions. As the aim of the Elementaries is ever 
to tend upwards towards man, so that of man gravitates 
to the spirit world, and aspires to the companionship of 
God and Angels. 

In these great seasons of mental unfoldment and spirit- 
ual trial, kindred natures attract each other, and dissimilar 
ones are violently repelled ; yet out of the frenzy of these 
stupendous mental epidemics the races emerge, disciplined, 
and informed of many of the most occult mysteries of be- 
ing that would otherwise remain profound secrets, and ut- 
terly unknown. 

In the early periods of the celebrated New England 
Witchcraft, the afflicted children first attacked, manifested 
the most marked tendency to imitate the actions of ani- 
mals, crawling round the walls and cornices of houses, 
climbing like squirrels up high trees, barking, crying and 
mimicking the voices of animals, with a fidelity as shock- 
ing as it was unaccountable. 

Similar tendencies to imitate animals and mimic their 
actions have m.arked many other great popular outbreaks 
of spiritual contagion. In Mora, Sweden, and Scotland, 
during the seventeenth century ; at Morzine during the 
nineteenth, these same perplexing features occurred in the 
tremendous fever of obsession that spread over whole dis- 
tricts, causing many of the unhappy victims to conduct 
themselves more like animals than human beings, during 
their paroxysms. Many of the features of Fetichism and 
Vandooism, partake of these dark characteristics, and 
though the author is of opinion, — -founded upon deep study 
of the facts, — that the majority of the demonstrations pro- 
duced in Europe and America during the great dispensa- 
tion termed " Modern Spiritualism," are produced by hu- 
man spirits, though the maximum of all testimony inclines 



oo: 



to prove that the spirits of humanity are the nearest to 
mortals, the most ready to serve and influence, and the 
most efficient to control, in fact that, wherever intelli- 
gence is rendered, it is strictly human, and implies human 
spiritual agency, still there are some features of medium- 
ship, especially amongst those persons known as " physi- 
cal force mediums," which long since should have awak- 
ened the attention of philosophical Spiritualists to the fact, 
that there were influences kindred only with animal 
natures at work somewhere, and unless the agency of cer- 
tain classes of Elementarj^ spirits was admitted into the 
category of occasional control, humanity has at times as- 
sumed darker shades than we should be willing to assign 
to it. Unfortunately in discussing these subjects, there 
are many barriers to the attainment of truth on this sub- 
ject. Courtesy and compassion alike protest against 
pointing to illustrations in our own time, whilst prejudice 
and ignorance intervene to stifle enquiry respecting pheno- 
mena which a long lapse of time, has left us free to inves- 
tigate. 

The Judges whose ignorance and superstition disgraced 
the Witchcraft trials of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries, found a solvent for all occult or even suspicious 
circumstances, in the control of " Satan and his Imps." 
The modern Spiritualists with few exceptions, are equally 
stubborn in attributing everything that transpires in Spir- 
itualistic circles, even to the wilful and cunninghi contrived 
preparations for deception on the part of pretended Media, 
to the influence of disembodied human spirits, gotid, bad, 
or indifferent ; but the author's own experience, confirmed 
by the assurances of wise-teaching spirits, impels him to 
assert that the tendencies to exhibit animal proclivities, 
whether mental, passional, or phenomenal, are most gen- 
erally produced by Elementaries. 



333 

The rapport with this realm of being is generally due to 
certain proclivities in the individual, or when whole com- 
munities are affected, the cause proceeds from revolution- 
ary movements, in the realms of Astral fluid ; these con- 
tingently affect the Elementaries, who in combination with 
low undeveloped spirits of humanity, avail themselves of 
magnetic epidemics to obsess susceptible individuals, a.nd 
sympathetically affect communities. 

From afflictions of this character, the only successful y 
method of exorcism is through the magnetic passes of 
strong, healthful, and well-disposed magnetizers. 

Although as we have before stated, the means of sum- 
moning Elementaries are similar to those employed in the 
evocation of spirits, the aims for which their services are 
solicited entirely determine the class of respondents. 
Whether the spirits invoked become visible or not, the 
presence is surely there. The call is always heard and oheyed. 
Man rules potentially over all lower existences than him- 
self; but woe to him, who by seeking aid, counsel or assist- 
ance from lower grades of being, binds himself to them ; 
henceforth he may rest assured they will become his para- 
sites and associates, and as their instincts — like those of 
the animal kingdom — are strong in the particular direc- 
tion of their nature, they are powerful to disturb, annoy, 
prompt to evil, and avail themselves of the contact induced 
by man's invitation to drag him down to their own level. 

The legendary idea of evil compacts between man and 
the '■'• Adversary," is not wholly mythical. Every wrong- 
doer si^'ns that compact with spirits who have s^anpathy 
with his evil actions. 

Many and many a hapless soul which has " shuffled off 
the mortal coil," finds to his cost that his evil deeds on 
earth have been performed in obedience to evil promptings, 
and that when he deemed he was procuring gratification 



334 

to himself alone by the indulgence of his passions, he was 
actually doing the bidding of Elementaries, and undevel- 
oped human Souls, who by virtue of his subjection to 
their will, or by reasons of obligations conferred upon him, 
now become his rulers, and enact in reality the fabled myth 
of Satanic compacts and Satanic possessions. 

Except for the purposes of scientific investigation, or 
with a view of strengthening ourselves against the silent 
and mysterious promptings to evil that beset us on every 
side, we warn mere curiosity seekers, or persons ambitious 
to attach the legions of an unknown world to their service, 
against any attempts to seek communion with Elementary 
spirts, or beings of any grade lower than man. 

Beings helow mortality can grant nothing that mortality 
ought to asJc. They can only serve man in some embryonic 
department of nature, and man must stoop to their state 
before they can thus reach him. 

The author has in vision, and guided by spirit friends and 
radiant Planetary Angels, visited many spheres of these 
Elementary races. He has seen them in every stage of 
degradation and progression, some almost ready to burst 
the chrysolitic shell of their caterpillar condition, and 
emerge into that spiritual realm, from which they would be 
attracted back to matter, and be born as men. Others, 
scarcely conscious of any higher existence than their own ; 
rudimentary beings who would have to undergo ages of 
progressive transition ere they could attain the coveted 
boon of immortality. 

In some of these embryonic spheres, the dwellers, con- 
scious of the superior existence and potential influence of 
man, and informed by their quick intuitions of the approach 
of spiritual visitants, made great preparations for their 
reception, and offered oblations and homage to them, after 
the fashion of deific worship. It will be asked why we 



335 

allude to experiences so recondite, and from which we 
would warn others back, as we would guard them from 
the unrest which attends too wide a perception of the 
mysteries of nature. We answer, knowledge is only 
good for us when we can apply it judiciously. Those who 
investigate for the sake of science, or with a view of en- 
larging the narrow boundaries of man's egotistical opin- 
ions, may venture much farther into the realms of the 
unknown, than mere curiosity seekers, or persons who 
desire to apply the secrets of being to selfish purposes. 
It may be as well also for man to remember that he and 
his planet are not the all of being, and that besides 
the revelations included in the stupendous outpouring 
called '• Modern Spiritualism," there are many problems 
yet to be solved in human life and planetary existence, 
which '^ Spiritualism" does not cover, nor ignorance and 
prejudice dream of 

Besides these considerations, we would warn man 
of the many subtle though invisible enemies which sur- 
round him, and rather by the instinct of their embryotic 
natures, than through malice prepense, seek to lay siege to 
the garrison of the human heart. We would advise him, 
moreover that into that sacred entrenchment^nojpower can 
enter, save by invitation of the Soul itself [Angels may so- 
licit, or demons may tempt, but none can compel the spirit 
within to action, unless it first surrenders the will to the 
investing power. 

Alter the weird clairvoyant pilgrimages into the secret 
crypts or aerial kingdoms of the Elementaries alluded to 
above, the author has speculated curiously upon the un- 
born triumphs which Science will yet achieve, when her 
indomitable researches shall have advanced from the realms 
of invisible gases, into those of the countless strata, which 
make up the imponderable element of FORCE, the lowest 



336 

of which is the realm of the Elementaries, the hig-hest, 
that of Astral Light or Spirit Land. If the telescope can 
gauge the infinite realms of space, and bring to the As- 
tronomer's view whole hemispheres of blazing suns, where 
the naked eye could discern only darkness impenetrable ; 
if the microscope can reveal a kingdom of animalculse, 
where the unassisted vision beholds only a drop of water, 
why may we not hope that the realms of the impondera- 
ble will yet be gauged by scientific instruments, and the 
blank and non-intelligent element of Force, ^deld up to 
view a Soul Universe, consisting of Kingdoms and Empires, 
before whose magnitude, power, and beauty, the worlds of 
matter will shrink into atomic littleness ! When Science 
stands still or goes back, we shall see the gates of future 
possibilities shut against her ; until then, the conquest of 
two new worlds await her discovery, those inhabited by 
the enfranchised souls of men and the Elementaries. 

Of the radiant and exalted realms of being termed Plane- 
tary Spirits, who with the countless orders of Angels and 
Archangels come under the category of Super-mundane 
Spiritism, it seems impossible to convey any adequate con- 
ception, save to those who have enjoyed the glorious pri- 
vilege of communion with them. 

All nations of antiquity believed in, and taught of them, 
yet even as " tutelary spirits," they rarely cpmmunicate 
openly with earth, and except to such Mystics as have by 
years of preparation fitted themselves for such high com- 
munion, their natures and functions are but little known. 

Still we feel impelled to speak of their existence not 
alone for the truth's sake, but also because we would en- 
large that narrow and limited view of God's Universe, 
which in so many minds can never expand beyond the 
idea of a mortal pilgrimage and immortal existence .for 
the inhabitants of this visible earth only. Every planet, 



337 

sun, and system, is teeming with life, and life both mate- 
rial and spiritual appropriate to each particular orb in 
space. The higher minds of every spirit sphere, inter- 
change communion with others in the same system of the 
Universe as their own. Clairvoyants, Seers, and instruct- 
ed Magicians, can if they will, invoke Planetary spirits, in 
preference to those of their own natures ; but here as 
throughout this volume, we affirm that the most direct, 
normal and harmonious spheres of communion, are those 
which connect man and the spirits of ancestors, those 
whose impelling motives in each case are love, kindness, 
desire for spiritual light and progress on the one side, and 
the undying affection which survives the shock of death, 
and urges kind spirit friends to minister tenderly to those 
they have left behind, on the other. 

The ties which unite in bonds of natural affinity the in- 
habitants of earth and their spirit friends and kindred, are 
those of root and branch, parents and offspring, and can 
never be broken, or superseded in the scale of natural har- 
mony. 

For the names and offices of the Planetary Spirits who 
are chiefly instrumental in communicating with mortals, 
as. well as the method of invoking them, we refer the 
reader to the Magical Elements of Peter D^Abano, to be 
found in a future section, and for a concluding notice con- 
cerning Elementary Spirits, we point to the following ex- 
cerpts, taken from the Author's Autobiography, entitled 
" Ghost- Land.'' 

"They (the Brotherhood) alleged that every fragment 
of matter in the universe represented a corresponding atom 
of Spiritual existence, hence they claimed there were 
earthy spirits ; spirits of the flood, the fire, the air ; spirits 
of various animals ; spirits of plant life, in all its varieties ; 
spirits of the atmosphere ; and planetary spirits, without 



338 

limit or number. The spirits of the planets, and higher 
worlds than earth, take rank far above any of those that 
dwelt upon, or in its interior. These spirits are far more 
powerful, wise, and far-seeing than the earth spirits. They 
assumed that as man's soul was composed of all the ele- 
ments which were represented in his body, so his spirit was 
as a whole, iar superior to the spirits of earth, water, 
plants, minerals, etc. To hold communion with them, 
however, was deemed by the Brotherhood legitimate and 
necessary to those who would obtain a full understanding 
of the special departments of Nature in which these em- 
bryotic existences were to be found. Thus they invoked 
their presence by magical rites, and sought to obtain con- 
trol over them, for the purpose of wresting from them the 
complete understanding of, and power over the secrets of 
Nature. They believed that the soul's essence became pro- 
gressed by entering into organic forms, and ultimately 
formed portions of that exalted race of beings, who ruled 
the fate of nations, and from time to time communicated 
with the soul of man as planetary spirits. They taught 
that the elementary spirits wefe dissipated into space by 
the action of death, but were taken up in higher organisms, 
and ultimately entered into the composition of human 

spirits Professor M. was exceedingly generous and 

distributed his abundant means with an unstinted hand. 
One day, discoursing with me t)n the subject of his lavish 
expenditure, he remarked carelessly : — 

" ' There is that mineral quality in my organism, Louis, 
which attracts to me, and easily subjects to my control, 
the elementary spirits who rule in the mineral kingdoms. 
Have I not informed you how invariably I can tell the 
quality of mines, however distant 7 how often I have 
stumbled, as if by accident, upon buried treasures "? and 
how constantly my investments and speculations have 



339 

resulted in financial successes 1 Louis, I attract money ^ 
because I attract mineral elements, and the spirits who rule 
in that realm of Nature. 

" ' I neither seek for, nor covet wealth, I love precious 
stones for their beauty and magnetic virtues, but money, 
as a mere possession, I despise. Were I as mercenary in 
my disposition, as I am powerful in the means of gaining 
wealth, I could be richer than Croesus, and command a 
longer purse than Fortunatus. Nevertheless the magnetic 
attractions which draw unto me the metallic treasures of 
the earth,, fail to find any response in the attractions of my 
spirit; whereas, were I so constituted as to lack the force 
which attracts the service of the spirits of the inetaLs^ my 
soul would feel and yearn for a supply to the deficiency, in 
a constant aspiration for money and treasure. ' 

" And that is why Professor M. was rich, but did not 
care for, or value his wealth, whilst so many millions, who 
do not possess in their organisms that peculiar mineral 
quality, which, as the Brotherhood taught, was necessary 
to attract wealth, pine for its possession, yet spend their 
lives vainly in its pursuit. 

" Thus it is, that moral, mental, and physical equilibrium 
is sustained throughout the grand machinery of the uni- 
verse." 

. ..." I must close this chapter by pointing out to the 
reader how naturally a careful analysis of the human spirit 
throws light upon all the psychological problems that have 
confused the race, and perplexed the philosopher. One 
individual becomes rich without effort, inherits wealth, 
finds wealth, acquires it in a thousand ways, and that with- 
out needing or laboring for it. Another spends his life in 
toiling to acquire it, and yet can never succeed. No one 
leaves hini an inheritance, he never purchases the success- 
ful number in a lottery, never succeeds in a financial spec- 
ulation. 



340 

" May there not be truth in the theory of the Brother- 
hood, to wit ; that bemgs potent in the realms of mineral 
treasure, are magnetically attracted to such organisms, as 
assimilate with their own 7 

" I have known one of the Brothers, who passed through 
nine battles unharmed, whilst more than fifty of his ac- 
quaintances, who had just entered the field of carnage, fell 
at the first or second shot. 

" Our philosophers alleged, that spirits of the fiery ele- 
ments could avert swift blows (especially such as struck 
fire) from those who had a preponderance of a similar 
element in them, whilst others, deficient in that quality of 
being, attracted all such blows as produced fire. They 
carried this theory forward into the tendency to be 
drowned, or to avoid the action of the watery element, — 
to become subject to a certain class of accidents, to be in 
danger from cattle, serpents, falling bodies, and indeed to 
all the events of life, asserting that as spirits pervaded 
every atom of space, and man's being was made up of all 
the elements, so when certain elements prevailed, corre- 
sponding spiritual influences were attracted and became 
favorable to him ; whereas the reverse of this position ob- 
tained, in organisms deficient in special elementary forces. 
It was to this cause that they attributed the good and 
bad luck of different individuals, and special successes 
and failures in all. I was introduced by one of the 
Brotherhood, to two young girls, one of whom was pas- 
sionately fond of flowers, and the other o± birds. In the 
clairvoyant condition, I was subsequently shown by our 
ruling spirit, the ' crowned angel,' and the attendant spirits 
who were attracted to these young creatures ; and I now 
afl&rm, that all the fairy tales and legends of Supernatu- 
ralism, which have been written on the subject of Sylphs, 
Undines, etc., pale and grow cold before the divine beauty, 
exquisite purity, and aspirational grace, which shines out 



341 

through the fleeting fragrance of those spirits that corres- 
pond to j&owers and birds." 

" In a conversation with a beautiful Mystic, one of the 
author's earliest friends and associates in the realms of 
spiritual research, now herself a glorified angel, the follow- 
ing items of philosophy were suggested. 

" ' Constance,' I asked, ' is it given you to know what 
new form you will inhabit 1 Surely, one so good and beau- 
tiful can become nothing less than a radiant planetary 
spirit 7' 

'' ' I shall be the same Constance I ever was,' she replied. 
'■ I am an immortal spirit now^ although bound in material 
chains within this frail body.' 

'■'■ ' Constance, you dream. Death is the end of individu- 
ality. Your spirit may be, must be, taken up by the 
bright realms of starry being, but never as the Constance 
you now are.' 

" 'Forever and forever, Louis, I shall be ever the same ! 
I have seen worlds of being, these Magians do not, dream 
of Worlds of bright resurrected human souls upon whom 
death has had no power, save to dissolvie the earthly 
chains that held them in tenements of clay. I have seen 
the soul world ; I have seen that' it is imperishable. 

" 'Louis, there are in these grasses beneath our feet spir- 
itual essences that never die. In my moments of happiest 
lucidity, my soul winged through space and pierced into a 
brighter interior than they have ever realized — aye, even 
into the real soul of the universe, not the mere magnetic 
envelope which binds spirit and body together. Louis, in 
the first or inner recesses of nature is the realm of force — 
comprising light, heat, magnetism, life, nerve-aura, essence 
and all the imponderables that make up motion, for motion 
is force, composed of many subdivisible parts. Here in- 
here those worlds of half-formed embryotic existences with 
which our teachers hold intercourse. They are the spir- 



342 

itual parts of matter, and supply to matter the qualities of 
force ; but they are all embryotic, transitory, and only par- 
tially inteDigent existences. Nothing which is imperfect 
is permanent, hence these elementary spirits have no real 
or permanent existence, they are fragments of being ; or- 
gans, but not organisms ; hence they perish — die, that we 
may gather up their progressed atoms, and incarnate their 
separate organs into the perfected man.' 

" ' And man himself, Constance V 

'' ' Man as a perfected organism cannot die, Louis. The 
mould in which he is formed must perish, in order that the 
soul may go free. The envelope, or magnetic body that 
binds body and soul together, is formed of Force and Ele- 
mentary Spirit ; hence this stays for a time with the soul 
after death, and enables it to return to, or linger around the 
earth for providential purposes, until it has become purified 
from sin ; but even this at length drops off, and then the 
soul lives as pure spirit, in spirit realms, gloriously bright, 
radiantly happy, strong, powerful, eternal, infinite. That 
is heaven ; that it is to dwell with God ; such souls are His 
angels. 

" ' The hand is not the body ; the eye is not the head ; 
neither are the thin, vapory essences that constitute the 
separate organs, of which the world of force is composed, 
the soul. Mark me, Louis ! Priests dream of the exist- 
ence of soul worlds ; the Brotherhood, of the beings in the 
world of force. The priests call the Elementary spirits 
of the mid-region mere creations of human fancy and su- 
perstition. The, Brothers charge the same hallucination 
upon the priests. Both are partly right and partly wrong, 
for the actual experiences of the soul will prove, that be- 
ings exist of both natures, and that both realms are veri- 
ties ; only the Elementary spirits in the realms of force are 
like the earth, perishable and transitory, and the perfected 
spirits in the realm of soul are immortal, and never die.' " 



343 



SECTION XYIII. 

Summary of SjnriUsm and Magic in transitional Eras — 
Witclicraft — Sjnrit of Persecution in Qliristiaii Churclt- 
es — Causes for the 'ivwpopularity of Spiritism — AlcTiem- 
ists — The Philosopher's Stone and Elixir Yitce. 

The history of Spiritism and Magic recedes from view, 
and becomes dim to the eye of the superficial observer, as 
the night of ruin and decay deepens into impenetrable 
gloom, and settles over the splendid Orient and the classic 
beauty of Greece and Rome. 

With the extinction of national life and glory in these 
once powerful dynasties, the spiritualistic influences they 
diffused throughout the world seem to wane, and finally 
vanish from the page of history, becoming only a memory, 
a tradition, or a sacred myth. 

But this absence of metaphysical life from physical his- 
tory is more apparent than real. Many causes combined 
to prejudice public opinion against the belief in Spiritism, 
yet Spiritism stretching forward in one unbroken chain of 
influence from ancient to modern times, has never ceased 
to exist, and the changes effected by altered conditions, 
altered opinions, and the rise and fall of dynasties, have no 
more succeeded in obliterating spirit manifestations from 
the page of human destiny, than the over-shadowing pall 
of midnight crushes out the fragrance and bloom of the 
flowers it effectually conceals. 

The early Christian Fathers not only retained their faith 
in the power and ministry of Angels and Spirits, on earth, 
but they proved that faith by the works of the Spirit, 
which they performed as their Master commanded them, 



344 

and for some centuries after his death, they looked with 
suspicion on those who failed to render this important tes- 
timony to their belief in Christianity. 

Tertullian, one of the most zealous of the second century 
converts to Christianity, sternly advised, that, " any per- 
sons calling themselves Christians, who could not even 
expel demons, or heal the sick, should be put to death as 
-impostors." 

The celebrated Bishops Montanus and Gregory, Origen, 
St. Martin, Theophilus, and numerous other eminent Chris- 
tian Fathers, urged that the same tests suggested by Ter- 
tullian should be required of professing Christians. They 
alleged their own willingness to submit to such an ordeal, 
and report affirms that they gave continual evidence of 
their ability to sustain their claims. 

So long as Greece and Rome maintained an independent 
nationality, spiritual influences ruled their councils, and 
interpenetrated every phase of their history. In China, 
Thibet, India and amongst the Northern Asiatic nations, 
Spiritism has never died out, and continues in force, sub- 
ject only to modifications in the decadence of religious zeal 
and fervor to this day. 

In every land where gregarious man yet resolves him- 
self into national communities, the exceptional gifts of 
Seers and Prophets have furnished means by which spirit 
visitants glance athwart the darkened paths of mortality. 
Spirit voices have resounded in the air. The semblances 
of the buried dead have glided through the open door, 
mounted the stair, and flashed upon our sight like glimpses 
of moonlight breaking through thick banks of clouds. 
Luminous forms radiant with the glory of the better land ; 
shapes of woe, shipwrecked waifs from the shores of a 
retributive hereafter, have come and gone, forming a per- 
petual chain of spiritual revelation, which time and change 



345 

have never had power to break. The realms of spiritual 
existence have never been without some witness in human 
consciousness. Blank materialism or bigoted ecclesiasti- 
cism have never had the excuse to say, in any decade of 
time — " The vision is closed ;" " the gates of the eternal 
city are shut;" " the canon of revelation is ended." 

Magic as an art may have been pursued in the middle 
ages, only at spasmodic intervals, and that under the ban 
of the Church, and the prohibitory frown of the State. 

We are not now writing the history of Spiritism and 
Magic, otherwise we could assign reasons in abundance for 
this decadence in the faith of old ; a few suggestions, how- 
ever, we feel compelled to make in this direction, and com- 
mence by claiming, that the brand of reprobation first 
launched against the name and fame of Spiritism, was 
cast by the hands of Christian Ecclesiastics. 

By internal luxury and external pride, the aristocratic 
rulers of the Christian Churches in the sixth and seventh 
centuries succeeded in driving spirit influence from their 
midst, and finding themselves deprived of spiritual gifts, 
and rebuked by the sight of laymen performing those 
apostolic works required of them in proof of their faith, 
they resolved in solemn council that henceforth it should he 
unlawful for any layman to attempt the rites of exorcism^ or 
the cure of disease ^ hy the laying on of hands. Public opinion 
once impelled in this direction soon gained force by mo- 
mentum. 

In Great Britain the ignorant and prejudiced mission- 
aries who were sent to convert the poor natives to Chris- 
tianity, commenced their work by levelling their bitterest 
diatribes against the prevailing worship of Druidism. 

The ancient rites of the Druids consisted of solar and 
sex worship interblended. The heaps of stones sometimes 
piled in single cairns, sometimes arranged in circles, but 



346 



above all, those gigantic rings formed of upright unhewn 
stones, with others horizontally laid across them, were all 
symbolical of the ancient faith of the Sun worshipper, 
blending with those emblems significant of the Eastern 
Phallus and Yoni. The upright unhewn pillars or Lithoi 




Stone Menge. 

were Phallic emblems, the horizontal slabs formed the 
mystic Gate or Tau, both important symbols of Phallic 
worship. Other Druidical altars formed of stones there 
were, which — ^either under the subtle influences communi- 
cated to them by powerful Priests and Priestesses, or from 
some peculiar virtue in the stone itself, when balanced one 
mass on another, could be caused to rock, and thus give 
responses to inquiring worshippers, just as the modern 
Spiritists obtain communications through the movements 
of inanimate bodies. 

The curious investigator of Druidical remains and an- 
cient faiths will find abundant evidence to show that these 
'' Cromlechs" or rocking stones were nothing less than 
oracular tables used by the Priestly orders to obtain 
responses from the invisible world. 

The nature of these weird rites was known to the an- 
cient Britons, and when they became converts to Christian- 



347 

ity, the Prophetic powers of the Priests and Priestesses, 
connected, as they were, with dreadful sacrificial offerings, 
in which the sacred human form was not always exempt, 
left such impressions of mystery and awe upon their un- 
taught minds, that it was not difficult for their Christian 
Teachers to convince them that this powerful Priesthood 
wrought their marvels and obtained responses through the 
devils whom they propitiated with human sacrifices. 

Thus the early Christians in Great Britain grew up with 
an instinctive horror of Spiritualistic rites, and never 
failed to connect them with the influence of evil spirits 
and Satanic worship. 

In Continental Europe whenever spiritual gifts were 
manifested in the Convents or Monasteries, they were 
deemed evidences of the special favor of God, and signs of 
extraordinary sanctity. The individuals thus highly fa- 
vored were canonized after death as saints, and vast revenues 
accrued to the shrines which enclosed their ashes, from the 
miracles they were assumed to work. 

That the lives of the saints, and holy ascetics of the 
Christian Monasteries should be full of spiritual works, 
was naturally to be expected. The conditions for the un- 
foldment of latent spiritual powers were as rigidly enforced 
in monastic rule as they were voluntarily endured by Hin- 
doo Fakeers. The severe discipline, numerous fasts, vigils 
and penances of these gloomy recluses, produced the 
same physiological and psychological changes, which have 
been indicated as resulting from Hindoo and Egyptian 
methods of Initiation. By the same law, the fires of per- 
secution and continual prospects of martyrdom, only served 
to quicken the zeal and stimulate the devotion of the early 
Christians, until they actually attained to those degrees of 
exalted insensibility to pain, that mark even now the self- 
inflicted mutilations of Eastern Ecstatics. 



348 

The rack and the thumb-screw, the convent and the 
monastery, each produced their legitimate fruits in legions 
of wonder-working saints and inspired martyrs, and these 
sufficed to supply the Christian Church with all the spirit- 
ism it was either safe or politic to encourage. 

As it became the interest of the Christian Hierarchy 
to attribute all marvels wrought in Monastic Institutions 
to the special favor of God, and the incomparable sanc- 
tity of Catholic devotees, so it was also necessary to reserve 
such vast auxiliaries to Clerical power within clerical 
boundaries, and hence, all who presumed to mainifest mi- 
raculous powers outside the privileged pale of the Church 
and its dependencies, were at once branded with the odious 
charge of witchcraft, necromancy and black magic. 

The more vague these charges were, and the more diffi- 
cult of definition, the more they struck terror into the 
mind of an ignorant populace, until it was deemed the 
highest act of piety on the part of laymen to accuse, and 
churchmen to destroy, every hapless creature whom the 
superstition of the time, or the possession of actual spirit- 
ual endowments, furnished excuses to brand with the fear- 
ful charge of witchcraft. 

It must be remembered that whilst the power of life and 
death was vested in the hands of civil governments, the 
power of conferring eternal life or eternal torments, was 
claimed by the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of the middle 
ages. 

I The Church, i^«fg4«g^the name and authority of Christ, 
' oiaica^not only to be God's vicegerent on earth, and to 
hold the keys of the kingdom, but to be the very porter 
and door-keeper of heaven, peddiing:3aiit:p3ssp33rts and selL. 
kig:iseats for the divine amphitheatres of eternity, to 4UQ§e_ 
whQ_jC£w=tldr:pa,y:iJ5»t, or confer the richest benefits on its 
luxurious orders. r 



349 

If Spiritual gifts had passed away from such a Church, if 
its well fed, pampered and ambitious disciples could no 
longer perform the works enjoined on them by the house- 
less and wandering Nazarene, — was not that sufficient rea- 
son tvliy no one else should presume to do more than themselves ? 
— that is, no one outside of ecclesiastical dependencies — for 
it was as much the policy of such a Church to encourage 
the prestige of miraculous gifts within the limits of its own 
holy " ring," as it was to burn, crush, torture, hang, drown, 
and slay generally, all who made profession of the same 
stupendous powers, outside their special jurisdiction. 

Every layman who could perform the works which 
Christian ecclesiastics ought to have done, was a living re- 
buke to them for their lack of faith, and so there was but 
one remedy — and that, the all-potential one of death. 
Thus perished to the number of nine thousand, the brave 
and devoted Stedinger, a section of the Frieslanders, who 
fired with the love of freedom, protested against the isso- 
lenL^^adatoGcacy of the Church, and so under letter of 
authority from the Pope and their Catholic Majesties of Ger- 
many, they were exterminated root and branch. Thus 
died the noble Waldenses, a sect of early Protestants whose 
death warrant was sealed for the same cause and by the 
same murderous hands. 

Thus in the fourteenth century, perished miserably, fifty- 
nine of the celebrated miiitarj' knights of the Holy Temple 
with their brave and noble Commanders Jaques de Molay 
and Guy of Normandy, all roasted a/zVo before slow fires by 
Christian Priests, and that under the accusation of excelling 
in those very arts for which the model man of the Chris- 
tian Bible, the great lawgiver of the Jews — Moses — had 
proved himself to be so accomplished an adept, namely, 
magic. According to the most authentic records of the 
times, and from transcripts of the very trials themselves, 



350 

we learn that between the twelfth and eighteenth centu- 
ries, thus perished amidst tortures too shocking for recital, 
and under circumstances that curdle the blood to remember, 
over 200,000 persons of both sexes and all ages, and that 
in Continental Europe alone ! These murders were per- 
petrated by roasting alive, hanging, burning, slaying, and 
crushing. Thej^ included the destruction of the pure, pious, 
self-devoted and Angel-led Joan of Arc, the Saviour of her 
country, and the ungrateful monsters who publicly burned 
her, and all thus perished, either being totally guiltless of 
any crime, or charged only with the possession of those 
spiritual gifts which the founder. of Christianity demanded 
as the evidence of Christian faith. 

, :' In all lands but those dominated by Christianity, Spirit- 
^ ism has not only prevailed but it still exists ; has been, and 
is, openly taught as an art, engrafted on the services of re- 
ligion, aud cultured as a science. Under Christian rule 
alone have its hapless votaries' powers been crushed out by 
torture, or silenced by death ; and thus it is that so strange 
and sudden a decadence appears on the page of historij to 
have fallen upon the once popular and universal methods 
of intercourse which prevailed between spirits and mortals 
in the early ages. The attitude of the Christian Ministry 
towards the spiritual side of man's nature, has been that 
of unceasing hostility and presumptuous denunciation ; can 
we wonder then, that a final eclipse of faith has fallen 
upon the people thus materialized by the very power to whom 
they have entrusted the charge of their spiritual relations, 
or that the soul of Christian humanity has become secu- 
larized, and its spiritual functions dwarfed almost to anni- 
hilation by such a process of training ? 

To gather up the scattered fragments of spiritual life 
and phenomena which have burst forth like pent-up fires 
from every hamlet, city, or nation, of civilization, during 



351. 

the bitter clerical proscriptions of the middle ages, would 
be impossible in a book of this character. Nothing less than 
a consecutive and all-embracing history could do justice to 
so vast a theme; our part therefore must now be limited to 
a few brief notices, and for this purpose we select five classes 
of representative Spiritists, who figured most prominently 
during the middle ages, and connected the first or ancient 
era of spiritual history with the present time. 

The three first of these are, the Alchemists, Rosicru- 
cians, and Mesmerizers ; a noble triad of scholarly men, 
who, inspired with the belief that spiritual powers and 
forces must be based upon scientific laws, endeavored to 
discover and practicalize these, by occult researches into 
nature, and the revival of magical rites and ceremonials. 

The two remaining classes included all those unfortunates 
branded with the crime of witchcraft, and unquestionably 
in many instances endowed with true prophetic powers, and 
finally the modern Spiritualists. 

Of the Alchemists, as a class, we have but little now to 
say. Although they professed to be engaged in seeking 
that mysterious stone, which would enable them to trans- 
mute base metals into gold, and by expressing the virtues 
of certain drugs and herbs, compound an elixir which 
should prolong life indefinitely, it is well known to modern 
scholars that the prestige of these pursuits was designed 
in many instances to conceal a more occult and spiritual 
idea. Alchemy owed its introduction into Europe to the 
Arabians, amongst whom Allarabi and Avicenna were the 
most celebrated. 

These men were no idle pretenders to the Hermetic phi- 
losophy. They were both instructed Physicians, wise 
Magnetists, and profound Psychologists. Some of their 
cures efiected by the laying on of hands and inimitable 
performances on the lute and other instruments of music, 



352 

proved them to be Adepts, if not in magical art, at least 
in the powers of magnetism and psychology. The first 
Alchemist of any repute, whose writings are preserved, was 
Geber, supposed to have been an Arabian, but historically 
proved to have been a German. This philosopher claimed 
that Alchemy was first practiced b}'^ Noah, and transmitted 
to his son Shem, from whom the derivation of the word 
Alchemy was traced. He proved that which the Jesuit 
Father Martini and Lenglet du Fresuoij^ in their several his- 
tories of the Hermetic philosophy, have clearly shown, 
namely : that Alchemy was believed in, and its principles 
attempted, if not successfully practiced, in most early 
periods of time. The Chinese taught of its possibility 
more than two thousand years before the birth of Christ, 
and many learned Alchemists claimed both Abraham and 
Moses as brothers of their craft. 

The facts were, that the bitter persecutions heaped 
upon all dissenters from the stereotyped doctrines of 
Christianity, as enunciated by the Roman Catholic Hier- 
archy, compelled the concealment of heretical opinions 
beneath some external form of science, whose semblance 
could give no offense to the ruling powers. 

The Arabian Alchemists and their philosophic succes- 
sors — the German Rosicrucians — were all waifs drifted off 
from the great ocean of natural Theosophy, whose source 
was to be found in the East, and whose origin dates back 
to the foundations of Sabaism and Ancient Masonry, in 
Chaldea, India and Egypt. 

These men were essentially the '■'■ Fire Philosophers" of 
the middle ages, and their doctrines and practices were 
derived from a profound study of the truths discoverable 
only in the powers of nature. 

They assumed that matter was resolvable back into two, 
three, or at most four primordial conditions. That by va- 



353 

rious combinations of these original elements all the 
varieties of material form and substance were produced, 
hence gold (in these philosophers' opinion) was but a result 
of the highest combination of elements, and the most per- 
fect experiments of nature. 

If then they argued, they could reduce matter back to 
its primordial states and then recombine, leaving out the 
subsidence or Hux, and preserving only the finer particles, 
they could make gold at will, and that from the very same 
substances that produced iron, lead, and all the baser met- 
als, which were really gold in embryonic conditions. 

To find the great factor by whose universal agency these 
natural transmutatitms proceeded in the bowels of the earth, 
they had only to resort to the Rosicrucian theory of latent, 
divine, invisible fire, permeating every portion of matter, 
theories of which we have written in former sections. 
Time, experience, and deep study, discovered to many an- 
cient philosophers a resemblance between the virtues 
which proceeded from certain stones, crystals, minerals, 
drugs, herbs, and plants ; astral, solar, and lunar influen- 
ces, and the touch of the human hand^ or even the contact of 
any object which had been worn by human beings. 

These, together with the mysterious powers of the load- 
stone, and the universal correspondence which the realms 
of nature and the sidereal heavens disclosed, convinced 
these fire philosophers that the great bidden virtue, the 
universal motor of being, was this ail-pervading latent 
fire, — or that which we call magnetism in the earth and 
minerals ; attraction and repulsion in the loadstone ; elec- 
tricity in the clouds and plants, and sparks evolved from 
batteries ; Life in animated bodies ; and Force through- 
out the Universe of moving forms. In recondite treat- 
ises elaborating the ideas which we have thus briefly 
summed up, the ancient Fire Worshippers, Mediaeval 



354 

Alchemists, and Rosicrucians, dilated on the Univer- 
sal Force of being, as the ^' Philosopher's Stone," which 
applied to chemical lore could make and mimake 
worlds — dissolve all bodies, and recombine them in 
whatever proportions the accomplished chemist desired, or 
if expressed into juices and mixed in such degrees as would 
preserve the largest amount of this force in a liquid form, 
it would be the " Elixir Vitse" of which those who partook, 
drinking in the true element of life, might prolong it at 
will, or if supplied with a sufficient quantity from time to 
time, — live forever ! 

Had Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Geber, Arte- 
phius, Friar Roger Bacon, and other great and truly 
learned students of these occult ideas, once beheld a Vol- 
taic pile reducing huge bars of metal into a few particles 
of ash in n, single flash, could they have seen similar light- 
ning sparks passing through invisible airs, crystallizing them 
into drops of water, or acting upon water, solidifying it into 
hard crystals, — could they have witnessed processes now so 
simple, then so stupendously magical, and beheld as the 
only visible agent of these wonderful transmutations, noth- 
ing but a flash of lightning, who can question that their 
faith in the philosopher's stone would have been sealed into 
certainty, and that they would have joined in the choral 
cry " Eureka ! The grand Hermetic secret is revealed." 

Again — Had these Adepts beheld, as the author has, a 
frail, wasted, dying creature, extending its emaciated frame 
on the couch over which the shadows of impending death 
were falling fast, and watched as the author has, a simple 
untaught countryman waving his rough warm hands over 
the helpless sufferer, until, without an atom of visible mat- 
ter used, a single particle of sensuous cause discoverable, 
the color returned to the wan cheek, light to the glazing 
eye, the crimson glow of life to the pallid lip, and strength 



to the wasted form, until upspringing from the couch of 
death and agony, the sufferer becomes a man again quite 
restored to life, strength, and health, would not the watch- 
ing Sages have pertinently asked, '' Do you now question 
the potency of the Elixir Vitce, or doubt that under its in- 
tluence, the mortal might become immortal, and live for- 
ever 1" 

With every day's experience in marvels of transforma- 
tion, transmutation and chemical change wrought by the 
all-potential magician Electricity, with an equal opportu- 
nity for experience to those who dare avail themselves of it, 
of the no less marvellous potency of vital magnetism, as a 
restorative of health, a healer of disease, nay, a very Mes- 
siah who can restore the entranced and semi-dead to life 
again, — who can question that the Alchemists of old were 
Prophets of the new '? and that their labors, veiled mysti- 
cism, and occult symbolism, only hovered on the threshold 
of those sublime truths, which Mesmer and Franklin have 
since demonstrated, and that even now, modern science is 
applying the philosopher's stone to every act of simple 
electrotyping, and modern magnetizers are administering 
draughts of the Elixir Vitse with every wave of their life- 
bringing hands. 

It boots not now to rehearse the names and exploits of 
the many wise and patient scholars, whose heretical beliefs 
were necessarily hidden under the jargon of alchemical 
discourses, and pretended researches into physical science. 
The Alchemists started upon metaphysical propositions, 
and arguing from the original sacredness of fire, the 
Deific principle hidden away under every atom of matter, 
they proceeded to physical experiments, in order to utilize 
this divine fire, and obtain a perfect command over all the 
elements of nature. 

They discovered in the course of their varied wander- 



356 

ings, from the visible to the invisible, many useful chemi- 
cal combinations. Roger Bacon, for example, eliminated 
many profound truths in Astronomy, and improved upon, 
if he did not actually invent, the telescope, burning- 
glasses and gunpowder. Arnold de Villeneuve, Raymond 
Lulli, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and many others 
more or less renowned, preserving faith in the wonders of 
chemistry, added constantly to the sum of human knowl- 
edge in this direction, besides advancing step after step 
into those realms of power and achievement, which en- 
abled Sweedenborg, Mesmer, Franklin, Galvani, Volta, 
and even the scoffing Faraday, to found upon the experi- 
ments of unknown and despised builders, those triumphant 
galleries and corridors of mesmeric, magnetic and electri- 
cal science, of which the Ancient Alchemists and Rosicru- 
cians laid the foundation stones. 



SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION XVIII. 

AlchemisU and Pliilosopliers of the Seventeenth and Eigh- 
teenth Centuries — the general uniformity of their O'pir)- 
ions. 

It would be impossible in a work of this limited nature 
to cite all the names, much less the opinions, of that 
numerous class distinguished either as Alchemists, Rosi- 
crucians, Astrologers, or Philosophers, who formed the 
ranks of Mysticism during the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries. Amongst the most distinguished of these ill- 
understood classes, were Nostradamus, a celebrated astron- 
omer, and an expert Astrologer ; Paracelsus, an excellent 
Physician and a Scholar, who either accidentally, or as the 



<.■ 



357 

result of research, discovered those truths concerning min- 
eral and animal magnetism which Mesmer subsequently 
reduced to a system ; Van Helmout, a truly prophetic per- 
son, but one who cultivated his gifts of Seership by the 
study and practice of magical arts ; Albertus Magnus, 
Thomas Aquinas, Artephius, Arnold de Villeneuve, Ray- 
mond Lulli, Roger Bacon, Nicholas Flammel, George Rip- 
ley, and many other practical chemists, who perceived the 
possibilities of Alchemy, and who distinguished themselves 
from the thirteenth to the eighteenth cer .uries in writing 
on this subject, and awakening the terror of the ignorant, 
and the denunciations of the bigoted. 

In the early part of the fifteenth century, the study of 
Alchemy and the practices of Magic became at once famous 
and infamous^ through the influence of the celebrated Gilles 
de Laval, a marshal of France, whose wealth, unbridled 
luxury and shameless debaucheries led him to the prac- 
tices of magical art, for the sake of administering to the 
vilest of passions, and the replenishment of his exhausted 
coffers, drained by his unparalleled extravagance. As this 
monster in human form supplied to the fiction mongers of 
later times the original of the famous drama of "Blue 
Beard," some idea may be formed of the vast notoriety to 
which his crimes attained. 

Neither the historical facts, nor the exaggerated tales 
which combined to render the name of Marshal de Retz 
memorable through all time, belong to this record ; it is 
enough to add that the magical practices to which he re- 
sorted in aid of his unholy purposes, contributed greatly 
to deepen the horror with which this art was regarded — 
especially in an age too ignorant and priest-ridden to dis- 
tinguish the nature of occult science from its worst abuse. 

It was during the fifteenth century that Henry Cornelius 
Agrippa flourished — an adept in physical science, scholarly 



358 



attainments, as well as occult art, which made him the 
honored officer of Kings and Princes, the friend, adviser 
and Physician of Queens and Princesses, and the Paragon 
of Magicians in all ages. It is from a compendium of his 
occult practices that we are enabled to present our readers, 
in the following section, with a complete Arhatel of Magic^ 
or full directions for the performance of those curious rites 
in which Agripi^a and many of his cotemporaries claimed 
to be able to ccitrol the legions of Planetary Spirits. 

Cornelius Agrippa. 




Frotn a rare print in the Strasburff Collection, 

It must be remembered that this distinguished Knight 
and great Adept was a devout Roman Catholic, hence he 
employed those sacred names, garments and forms, which 
belonged to his Church, just in the same manner as the 
Arabians, Greeks, Chaldeans and Egyptians employed the 
names and formulae of belief peculiar to their time in their 
magical rites. Let it be borne in mind however, that such 
features of each system are but the exoteric forms in which 
the esoteric principles are wrapped up. They have no 
real potency beyond the satisdictlon tliey procure to pious 



359 

minds, that they are engaged in no ceremonials displeas- 
ing to their Gods, or contrary to their forms of worship. 

Provided always that the magician is duly prepared by 
fasting, abstinence, prayer and contemplation — provided 
that his magnetism is potent and his will all-powerful — 
the spirits will obey and answer him, whether he conjures 
them in the name of Buddha, Osiris, Christ or Mahomet. 
The true potency resides in the quantity and quality of 
the Astral fluid, by which the operator furnishes means 
for the use of the spirits, and the power of the Will, by 
which he compels beings less potent than himself to obey 
him. With these premises we shall only add, that after a 
careful study of the occult works of Cornelius Agrippa, we 
found it wholly impossible to reduce their quaint and in- 
volved style to the comprehension of the nineteenth cen- 
tury reader, without infringing upon the integrity of the 
text. Happily for our purpose, the same idea occurred to 
a distinguished philosopher said to have been a pupil of 
the great Agrippa's — one who, with much more perspicuity 
of style, undertakes to reduce the magical elements of his 
renowned prototype into much plainer language. As 
there is not the slightest shadow of difference between the 
systems of Agrippa and Abano, except in the superior clear- 
ness of the latter's style, and as both were translated into 
English in 1664 by the same scholarly editor, Robert Turn- 
er, of London, England, we select Abano's version as the one 
which cannot fail to prove the most acceptable to our 
readers. 

All the signs, sigils, names of angels, etc., have been 
faithfully copied with the utmost care. 



360 



SECTION XIX. 

H K P 'j; ^ ]M K tJ, O >r ; 

OR, 

Magical Elements of Peter D'Ahanuj Philosopher. 

In the former book of Agrippa^ it is sufficiently spoken 
concerning Magical Ceremonies, and Initiations. 

But because he seeraeth to have written to the learned, 
and well experienced in this Art ; because he doth not 
specially treat of the Ceremonies, but rather speaketh of 
them in general, it was therefore thought good to adde 
hereunto the Magical Elements of Peter de Ahano : that 
those who are hitherto ignorant, and have not tasted of 
Magical Superstitions, may have them in readiness, how 
they may exercise themselves therein. For we see in 
this book, the distinct functions of spirits, how they may 
be drawn to discourse and communication ; what is to be 
done every day, and every hour ; and how they shall be 
read, as if they were described sillable by sillable. 

In brief, in this book are kept the principles of Magical . 
conveyances. But because the greatest power is attributed 
to the Circles; (for they are certain fortresses to defend 
the operators safe from the evil Spirits ; ) In the first 
place we will treat concerning the composition of a Circle. 

Of the Circle, and the composition thereof. 

,v 

The form of Circles is not always the same ; but useth to 
be changed, according to the order of the spirits that are to 
be called, their places, daies, and hours. In making a Cir- 



361 



cle, it ou^ht to be considered in what time of tlie year, 
day, and hour you make the Circle ; what Spirits you call, 
to what Star and Region they do belong, and what func- 
tions they have. Therefore let there be made three Cir- 
cles of the latitude of nine foot, and let them be distant 
one from another a hand's breadth ; and in the middle 
Circle, first, write the name of the hour wherein you do 
the work. In the second place, write the name of the An- 
gel of the hour. In the third place, the sigil of the Angel 
of the hour. Fourthly, the name of the Angel that ruleth 
that day, and the names of his Ministers. In the fifth 
place, the name of the present time. Sixthly, of the Spir- 
its ruling in that part of time, and their Presidents. Sev- 
enthly, the name of the head of the Signe ruling in that 
part of time wherein you work. Eighthly, the name of 
the earth, according to that time. Ninthly, and for the 
completing of the Middle Circle, write the name of the 
Sun and Moon, according to the said rule of time ; for as the 
time is changed, so the names are to be altered. And in 
the outermost Circle let there be dra-wn in the four angles, 
the names of the presidential Angels of the Air, that day 
wherein you work ; to wit, the name of the King and his 
three Ministers. Without the Circle, in four angles, let 
Pentagones be made. In the inner Circle, let there be 
written four divine names with" crosses interposed in the 
middle of the Circle ; to wit, towards the East let there be 
written Alpha^ and towards the West let there be written 
Omega ; and let a cross divide the middle of the Circle. 
When the Circle is thus finished, according to the rule 
now before written, you shall proceed. 

Of the names of the Angels and their Sigils, it shall be 

spoken in their proper places. Now let us take a view of 

the names of the times. A year is fourfold, and is divided 

,into Spring, Summer, Harvest and Winter; the names 

whereof are these : 



362 

The Spring, Taloi. The Summer, Casmaran. Autumne, 
Adarael. Winter, Earlas. 

The Angels of the Spring : Caracasa, Core, Amatiel, 
Commissoros. » 

The head of the Signe of the Spring : Spughguel. 

The name of the Earth in the Spring : Amadai. 

The names of the Sun and Moon in the Spring : The 
Sun, Abraym. The Moon, Agusita. 

The Angels of the Summer: Gargatel, Tariel, Gaviei.. 

The head of the Signe of the Summer : Tubiel. 

The name of the Earth in Summer : Festativi. 

The names of the Sun and Moon in Summer. The Sun, 
Athemay. The Moon, Armatus. 

The Angels of Autumne : Tarquam, Gnabarel. 

The head of the Signe of Autumne : Torquaret. 

The name of the Earth in Autumne : Rabianara. 

The names of the Sun and Moon in Autumne : The Sun, 
Commutaff'. The Moon, Affaterium. 

The Consecrations and Benedictions, and First of the 
Benediction of the Circle. 
When the Circle is ritely perfected, sprinkle the same 
with holy water and say, " Thou shalt purge me with hys- 
sop, Lord, and I shall be clean ; thou shalt wash me, 
and I shall be whiter than snow." 

The Benediction of Perfumes. 
" The God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, 
bless here the creatures of these kindes, that they may 
fill up the power and vertue of their odours ; so that neither 
the enemy nor any false imagination may be able to enter 
into them, through our Lord Jesus Christ, &c." Then let 
them be sprinkled with holy water. 

The Exorcisme of Fire upon which the Perfumes are 

TO BE PUT. 

The fire which is to be used for fumigations is to be in 



363 



a new vessel of earth or iron, and let it be exorcised after 
this manner : 

'' I exorcise thee, thou creature of fire, by him by 
whom all things are made, that forthwith thou cast away 
every phantasme from thee, that it shall not be able to do 
any hurt in anything. Then say, " Bless Lord this crea- 
ture of fire, and sanctifie it, that it may be blessed to set forth 
the praise of thy holy name, that no hurt may come to 
the Exorcisers or Spectators, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, &c." 

Of the Garment and Pentacle. 

Let it be a Priest's garment if it can be ; but if it can- 
not be had, let it be of linen, and clean. Then take this 




JTortn of a Pentiicle, 



Pentacle made in the day and hour of Mercury, the Moon 
increasing, writ':en in parchment made of a kid's skin. 



364 

But first let there be said over it the mass of the Holy 
Ghost, and let it be sprinkled with water of baptism. 

An Oration to be Said when the Vesture is Put On. 

" Ancor, Amacor, Theodonius, Anitor, by the merits of 
thy Angels, Lord, I will put on the garment of Salvation, 
that this which I desire may bring to effect, through thee, 
the most holy Adonay, whose Kingdom endureth forever 
and ever, Amen " 

Of the Manner of Working. 

Let the Moon be increasing and equal, if it may then be 
done, and let her not be combust. 

The Operator ought to be clean and purified for the 
space of nine days before the beginning of the work, and 
to be confessed and receive the holy Communion. Let 
him have ready the perfume appropriated to the day 
wherein he would perform the work. He ought also to 
have holy water from a- Priest, and a new earthen vessel 
with fire, a Vesture and Pentacle ; and let all these things 
be rightly consecrated and prepared. Let one of the ser- 
vants carry the earthern vessel full of fire and the per- 
fumes, and let another bear the Book, another the Garment 
and Pentacle, and let the master carry the Sword, over 
which there must be said one Mass of the Holy Ghost ; and 
on the middle of the Sword let there be written this name : 
Alga, and on the other side thereof, the name On. And 
as he goeth to the consecrated place, let him continually 
read Litanies, the servants answering ; and when he cometh 
to the place where he will erect the Circle, let him draw 
the lines of the Circle, as we have before taught ; and after 
he hath made it, let him sprinkle the Circle with holy 
water, saying : Asperges me Domine^ etc. 

The Master, therefore, ought to be purified with fasting, 



366 

chastity and abstinency from all luxury the space of three 
whole days before the day of the operation ; and on the day 
that he would do the work, being clothed with pure gar- 
ments, and furnished with Pentacles, perfumes and other 
things necessary hereunto, let him enter the Circle, and 
call the Angels from the four parts of the world, which do 
govern the seven Planets, the seven dayes of the week, 
Colours and Metals, whose name you shall see in their 
places ; and with bended knees invocating the said Angels 
particularly, let him say : '' Angeli supradicti, estate ad- 
jutores mea petitioni, et in adjutorium mibi, in meis rebus 
et petitionibus." 

Then let him call the Angels from the four parts of the 
world, that rule the Air the same day wherein he doth the 
work ; and having implored specially all the names and 
Spirits written in the Circle, let him say : "0 vos omnes, 
adjuro atque contestor per sedum Adonay, per Hagios, 
Theos, Ischyros, Athanatos, Paracletos, Alpha et Omega, 
et per hoc tria nomina secreta, Agla, On, Tetragrammaton, 
quod bodie debeatis adimplere quod cupio." 

These things being performed, let him read the Conjur- 
ation assigned for the day wherein he maketh the experi- 
ment ; but if they shall be pertinacious, and will not yield 
themsels^es obedient, neither to the Conjuration assigned 
to the day, nor to the prayers before made, then use the 
Conjurations and Exorcisms following. 

An Exorcism of the Spirits of the Air. 

We being made after the Image of God, endued with 
power from God, and made after his Will, do exorcise you 
by the most mighty- and powerful name of God, El, strong 
and wonderful {Jiere he shall name the spirits he would have 
appear, of what Order soever they be), and we command you 
by him, who said the word and it was done, and by all the 



366 

names of God, and by the name Adonaij^ El^ EloMm, Elohc^ 
Lehaoth^ Elion, Escerchie, Jah, Tetragrammaton^ Sadaj/, Lord 
God most high : We powerfully command you, that you 
forthwith appear unto us, here before this Circle, in a fair 
humane shape, without any deformity or tortuosity ; come 
ye all such, because we command you by the name of God ; 
and by these three secret names, Agla, On, Tetragramma- 
ton, I do adjure you ; and by all the other names of the 
living and true God, I exorcise and command you, that you 
appear here before this Circle to fulfill our will in all things 
which shall seem good unto us ; and by this name Primeu- 
maton, which Moses named, and the earth opened and swal- 
lowed up Corali^ Dathan and Abiram ; and we curse you and 
deprive 3^ou from all your office, joy and place, and do bind 
you in the depth of the bottomless Pit, there to remain un- 
til the day of the last Judgment ; unless you forthwith 
appear before this Circle to do our will ; Therefore come 
ye, come ye, come ye, Adonay commandeth you ; Sadajj, the 
most mighty and dreadful King of Kings, whose power no 
creature is able to resist, be unto you most dreadful, unless 
ye obey, and forthwith appear before this Circle, let miser- 
able ruin and fire unquenchable remain with you ; there- 
fore come ye in the name of Adonay Lebaoth, Adonay Ami- 
oram ; come, come, why stay you '? hasten ! Adonay, 
Saday, the King of Kings commands you ; El,Aty, Asia, 
Hin, Jen, Achaden, Vay, El, El, El, Hau, Hau, Hau, Va, Va, 
Va. 

A Prayer to God, to be said in the four parts of 
THE World, in the Circle. 

" O my most merciful heavenly Father, have mercy up- 
on me, although a sinner, make appear the arm of thy 
power in me this day (although thy unworthy child) 
against these obstinate and pernicious Spirits. I humbly 



367 

implore and beseech thee, that these Spirits which I call 
may be bound, and constrained to come, and give true and 
perfect answers to those things which 1 shall ask them, and 
that they may declare and shew those things which by me 
shall be commanded them." Then let him stand in the 
middle of the Circle, and hold his hand towards the Pent- 
acle, and say : " By the pentacle of Solomon I have called 
you, give me a true answer." Then let him say : " By the 
most mighty Kings and Potentates, and the most powerful 
Princes, Ministers of the Tartarean Seat, chief Prince of 
the Seat of the ninth Legion ; I invoke you, and conjure 
you, and strongly command you, by him who spoke and it 
was done, and by this ineffable name Tetragrammaton Jeho- 
vah, which being heard, the Elements are overthrown, the 
Air is shaken, the Sea runneth back, the Fire is quenched, 
the Earth trembleth, and all the Hosts of Celestials, Ter- 
restrials, and Infernals do tremble, and are confounded to- 
gether ; Wherefore forthwith and without delay, do you 
come from all parts of the world, and make rational an- 
swers unto all things I shall ask of you ; and come ye now 
without delay manifesting what we desire, being conjured 
by the Name of the eternal, living, and true God Helioren 
and fullil our commands, intelligibly and without anj^ am- 
biguity. " 

Visions and Apparitions.^ 

These things duly performed, there will appear infinite 
Visions and Phantasms, beating of Organs and all kinds of 
Musical Instruments, which is done by the Spirits, that 
with the terror they might force the Companions to go out 
of the Circle, because they can do nothing against the 
Master. After this you shall see an infinite Company of 
Archers, with a great multitude of horrible beasts, which 
will so compose themselves as if they would devour the 
fellows : nevertheless fear nothing. 



368 



Then the Priest or Master, holding his hand toward the 
Fentacle shall say^ " Avoid hence these iniquities by vertue 
of the Banner of God;" and then will the Spirits be com- 
pelled to obey the Master, and the Company shall see no 
more. 

Then let the Exorcist^ stretching out his hand to the Pentacle^ 
say J " Behold the Pentacle of Solomon which I have brouglit 
before your presence. Behold the person of the Exorcist 
in the middle of the Exorcism, who is armed by God, and 
without fear, and well provided, who potently invocateth 
and calleth you, come therefore with speed, in the virtue 
of these names. Aye, Seraye, Aye, Seraye ; defer not to 
come by the eternal Names of the living and true God, 
Eloy, Archima, Rabur, and by the Pentacle here present, 
which powerfully reigns over you, and by the virtue of the 
Celestial Spirits your Lords, make haste to come and yield 
obedience to your Master." This being performed, there 
will be hissings in the four parts of the world, and then 
immediately you shall see great motions ; and when you 
see them, say, " Why stay you '? wherefore do you delay 7 
prepare yourselves and be obedient to your Master." 

Then they will immediately come in their proper form ; 
and when you see them before the Circle, shew them the 
Pentacle covered with fine linen ; uncover it and say, "Be- 
hold your conclusion, if you refuse to be obedient ;" and 
suddenly they will appear in a peaceable form, and will 
say, "^ Ask what you will, for we are prepared to fulfil all 
your commands, for the Lord hath subjected us hereunto ;" 
and when the Spirits have appeared, then you shall say, 
" Welcome Spirits, or most noble Kings, because I have 
called you through him to whom qyqyj knee doth bow, 
both of things in Heaven and things in Earth, and 
things under the Earth, in whose hands are all the 
Kingdoms of Kings, neither is there any that can con- 



369 



tradict his Majesty. Wherefore I bmd you, that yuu 
remain affable and visible before tliis Circle, neither shall 
you depart without my license, until you have truly and 
without any fallacy performed my will, by virtue of his 
power who hath set the Sea her bounds, nor go beyond the 
law of his Power, the most high God, who hath created all 
things. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Hol}^ Ghost, go in peace unto your places; peace 
be between us and you, be ye ready to come when ye are 
called." 

The Figure of a Circle for the First Hour of the 
Lord's Day in Spring-time. 




These are the things which Peter de Abano hath spoken 
concerning Magical Elements. 



370 

But that you may the better know the manner of com- 
posing a Circle, I will set down one scheme ; so that il" 
any would make a Circle in Spring-time, for the first hour 
of the Lord's day, it must be in the same manner as in the 
illustration on the preceding page. 

It remaineth now, that we explain the Week, the sev- 
eral days thereof, and the first of the Lord's day. 

Considerations of the Lord's Day. 

The Angel of the Lord's day, his Sigil, Planet, Sign of 
the Planet, and the name of the fourth Heaven. 



Ifet © «A:> 




The Angels of the Lord's day : Michael, Dardiel, Hural- 
apal. 

The Angels of the Air ruling on the Lord's day : Var- 
can, King. 

His Ministers : Tus, Andas, Cynabal. 

The winde which the Angels of the Air above said are 
under : The North-winde. 

The Angel of the fourth Heaven, ruling on the Lord's 
day, which ought to be called from the four parts of " the 
world. 

At the East : Samael, Baciel, Atel, Gabriel, Vionatraba. 

At the West : Anael, Pabel, Vstael, Burchat, Suceratos, 

Capabili. 

At the North : Atiel, Auiel, vel Aquiel, Masgabriel, 
Sapiel, Matuyel. 

At the South: Haludiel, Machasiel, Charsiel, Vriel, 
Naromiel. 

The perfume of the Lord's day : Red Sanders. 



371 

The Conjuratiox of the Lord's Day. 

" I conjure and confirm upon you, ye strong and holy 
Angels of God, in the name Adonay, Eye, Eye, Eya, which 
is he who was, and is, and is to come, Eye Abray, and in 
the name Saday, Cados, Cados, Cados, sitting on high upon 
the Gherubin ; and by the great Name of God himself, 
strong and powerful, who is exalted above all Heavens, 
and by the name of the holy Angels who rule in the 
fourth Heaven^ and by the name of his Star, which is Sol ; 
and by his Sign ; and by all the names aforesaid, I conjure 
thee Michael, oh great Angel, who art chief Ruler of the 
Lord's day; That thou labor for me, and fulfil all my peti- 
tions, according to my will and desire, in my cause and 
business. " \ 

And here thou shaft declare thy cause and business, and 
for what thing thou makest this Conjuration. 

The Spirits of the Air of the Lord's day are under the 
North- winde ; their nature is to procure Gold, Gemmes, 
Carbuncles, Riches : to cause one to obtain favor and be- 
nevolence ; to dissolve the enmities of men ; to raise men 
to honors ; to carry or take away infirmities. But in what 
manner they appear, it's spoken already in the former Book 
of Magical Ceremonies. 

Considerations of Munday. 
The Angel of Mmiday, his Sigil, Planet, the Sign of the 
Planet, and name of the first Heaven. 



The Angels of Munday : Gabriel, Michael,gSamael. 
The Angels of the Air ruling on Munda}' : x\rcan, King. 
His Ministers : Bilet, Missabu, Abuzaha. 



372 

The winde which the said Angels of the Air are subject 
to : The West winde. 

The Angels of the first Heaven ruling on Munday, 
which ought to be called from the four parts of the world. 

From the East : Gabriel, Gabrael, Madiel, Deamiel, 
Janael. 

From the West : Sachiel, Laniel, Habaiel, Bachanael, 
Corabael. 

From the North : Mael, Uvael, Valuum, Baliel, Balay, 
Humastrau. 

From the South : Chrauiel, Dabriel, Darqueil, Hanun, 
Anajl, Vetuel. 

The perfume of Munday : Aloes. 

The Conjuration of Munday. 

'^ I conjure and confirm upon you, ye strong and good 
Angels, in the name Adonay, Adonay, Eye, Eye, Eye, 
Cados, Cados, Cados, Achim, Achim, Ja, Ja, strong Ja, 
who appeared in Mount Sinai with the glorification of 
King Adonay, Saday, who created the sea and all lakes 
and waters in the second day, and sealed the sea in his 
high name, and gave it bounds beyond which it cannot 
pass ; and by the names of the Angels, who rule in the 
first Legion, who serve Orphauael, a great and honorable 
Angel, and by the name of his Star, and by all the names 
aforesaid — I conjure thee Gabriel, who art chief Ruler of 
Munday, that for me thou labour and fulfil," &c., as in the 
Conjuration of Sunday. 

The Spirits of the Air of Munday are subject to the 
West-winde, which is the winde of the Moon ; their na- 
ture is to give silver, to convey things from place to 
place ; to make horses swift, and to disclose the secrets of 
persons both present and future ; but in what manner 
they appear, you may see in the former book. 



373 

Considerations of Tuesday. 

The Angel of Tuesday, his Sigil, his Planet, the sign 
governing that Planet, and the name of the fifth Heaven. 



s 







The Angel of Tuesday : Samael, Satael, Amabiel. 

The Angels of the Air ruling on Tuesday : Samax, 
King. 

His Ministers : Carmax, Ismoli, Paffrau. 

The winde to which the said Angels are subject : The 
East-winde. 

The Angels of the fifth Heaven ruling on Tuesday, which 
ought to be called, from the four parts of the world. 

At the East : Friagne, Guael, Damael, Calza, Arragon. 

At the West : Lama, Astagna, Lobquin, Sencas, Jazel, 
Isiael, Irel. 

At the North : Rahumel, Hyniel, Rayel, Seraphiel, 
Mathiel, Fraciel. 

At the South : Sacriel, Janiel, Galdel, Osael, Vianuel, 
Laliel. 

The Perfume of Tuesday : Pepper. 

The Conjuration of Tuesday. 

" I Conjure and confirm upon you, ye strong and holy 
Angels, by the name Ya, Ya, Ya, He, He, He, Ya, Hy, Hy, 
Ha, Ha, Ya, Ya, An, An, Aie, Aie, Eloim, Eloim ; and by 
the name of that high God who made the dry land appear, 
and called it Earth, and brought forth herbs and trees out 
of the same ; and by the name of the Angels ruling in the 
fifth Heaven, who serve Acimoy, a great Angel, strong 
and honourable ; and by the name of his Starre, which 



374 

is Mars, and by the names aforesaid, I Conjure upon 
thee, Samael, who art a great Angel and chiefe ruler 
of Tuesday ; and by the name Adonay, the living and 
true God, that for me thou labour and fulfil," &c., as in the 
Conjm^ation of Sunday. 

The Spirits of the Air of Tuesday are under the East- 
winde ; their nature is to cause wars, mortality, death and 
combustions, and to give two thousand Souldiers at a time ; 
to bring death, infirmities or health. The manner of their 
appearing you may see in the former book. 

Considerations of Wednesday. 

The Angel of Wednesday, his Sigil, Planet, the Signe 
governing the Planet, and the name of the second heaven. 







The Angels of Wednesday : Raphael, Miel, Serapiel. 

The Angels of the Air ruling on Wednesday : Mediat 
or Modi at, Rex. 

Ministers : Suquinos, Sallales, Blaef. 

The winde to which the said Angels are subject : The 
Southwest- winde . 

The Angels of the second heaven governing Wednes- 
day, which ought to be called from the four parts of the 
world. 

At the East : Mathlai, Tarmiel, Barabo. 

At the West : Jerescus, Mitraton. 

At the North : Thiel, Rael, Jeriabel, Venabel, Velel, Ab- 
niori, Veirnuel. 

At the South : Miliel, Nelapa, Babel, Calnel, Vel, La- 
quel. 

TJae Fumigation of Wednesday : Mastick. 



375 

The Conjuration of Wednesday. 

" I Conjure and Confirm upon you, ye strong, holy and 
potent Angels, in the name of the most dreadfull, and 
blessed Ja, Adonay, Eloim, Saday, Sady, Eie, Eie, Eie, 
Asamie, Asaraie ; and in the name of Adonay, the God of 
Israel, who created the two great lights to distinguish the 
day from the night, and by the name of all the Angels 
serving in the second host, before Tetra, a great and pow- 
erful Angell ; and by the name of his Star, which is Mer- 
cury ; and by the name of the Seal, which is sealed by 
God most mighty and honourable ; by all things before 
spoken, I Conjure upon thee, Raphael, a great Angel, who 
art chief ruler of the fourth day ; and by the name of the 
seat of the Animals having six wings, that for me thou 
labor," etc., as in the Conjuration of Sunday. 

The Spirits of the Air of Wednesday are subject to the 
Southwest-winde ; their nature is to give all Metals ; to 
reveal all earthly things past, present and to come ; to 
pacific Judges, to give victories in war, to re-edifie, and 
teach experiments and all decayed Sciences, and to change 
bodies mixt of Elements conditionally out of one into 
another ; to give infirmities or health ; to raise the poor, 
and cast down the high ones ; to binde or loose Spirits ; to 
open locks or bolts ; such-kind of Spirits have the opera- 
tion of others ; but not in their perfect power, but in vir- 
tue or knowledge. In what manner they appear it is be- 
fore spoken. 

Considerations of Thursday. 

The Angel of Thursday, his Sigil, Planet, the Signe of 
the Planet, and the name of the Sixth Heaven, 




376 

The Angels of Thursday : Sachiel, Castiel, Asasiel. 

The Angels of the Air governnig Thursday : Suth, Rex. 

Ministers : Maguth, Gutrix, Pacifer. 

The winde which the said Angels of the Air are under : 
The SoLith-winde. 

But because there are no Angels of the Air to be found 
above the fifth heaven, therefore on Thursday say the pra}^- 
ers following in the four parts of the world. 

At the East : "0 great and most high God, honored world 
without end." 

At the West : " wise, pure, and just God, of divine 
clemency, I beseech thee, most holy Father, that this day I 
may perfectly understand and accomplish my petition. 
Thou who livest and reignest world without end. Amen." 

At the North : " God strong and mighty from everlast- 
ing." 

At the South : "0 mighty and merciful God." 

The perfume of Thursday : Saffron. 

The Conjuration of Thursday. 

" I Conjure and Confirm upon you, ye holy Angels, and by 
the name Cados, Cados, Cados, Eschereie, Eschereie, Escher- 
eie, Hatim, Ya, strong ibunder of the worlds, Cantine, Jaym, 
Janic, Auie, Calbot, Sabbac, Berisay, Alnaym : and by 
the name Adonay, who created Fishes, and creeping things 
in the waters, and Birds upon the face of the earth, and by 
the names of the angels serving in the sixth host, before 
Pastor, a holy Angel, and a great Prince ; and by the 
name of his Star, which is Jupiter, and by the name of 
his Seal, and by the name Adonay, the great God, creator 
of all things ; and by the name of all Stars and by their 
power, and by all the names aforesaid, I conjure thee Sa- 
chiel, a great Angel, who art chief ruler of Thursday, that 
for me thou labor," etc., as in the Conjuration of the 
Lord's day. 






377 

The Spirits of the Air of Thursday are subject to the 
South-winde ; their nature is to procure the love of women, 
to cause men to be merry and joyful ; to pacifie strife and 
contentions ; to appease enemies ; to heal the diseased, and 
to disease the whole ; and procureth losses, or taketh them 
away. Their manner of appearing is spoken of already. 

Considerations of Friday. 

The Angel of Friday, his Sigil, his Planet, the Signe 
,2;overning that Planet, and name of the third heaven. 




The xlngels of Friday : Anael, Rachiel, Sachiel. 

The Angels of the Air reigning on Friday : Sarabotes, 
King. 

Ministers : Amahiel, Aba, Abalidoth. 

The winde which the said Angels of the Air are under : 
The West-winde. 

Angels of the third Heaven, ruling on Friday, which are 
to be called from the four parts of the world. 

At the East : Setchiel, Chedusitaniel, Corat, Tamael, 
Tenaciel. 

At the West: Turiel, Coniel, Babiel, Kadie, Maltiel, 
Huphaltiel. 

At the North : Peniel, Penael, Periat, Raphael, Rainel, 
Doremiel. 

At the South : Porna, Sachiel, Chermiel, Samael, San- 
tanael, Famiel. 

The perfume of Friday : Pepperwort. 

The Conjuration of Friday. 

'' I Conjure and Confirm upon you, ye strong Angels, holy 
and powerful ; in the name 0;?, Heij^ Heijct^ Ja^ Je^ Adona//. 



378 

Sada/f, and in the name Sada.i/^ who created four-footed 
beasts, and creeping things, and man in the sixth day, and 
gave to Adam power over all creatures ; and b}'^ the name 
of the Angels serving in the third host, before Dagiel^ a 
great Angel and powerful Prince ; and by the name of the 
Star which is Venus, and by his Seal which is holy, and 
by all|the names aforesaid, I conjure upon thee Anael, who 
art chief ruler of the sixth day, that thou labour for me," 
etc., as before in the Conjuration of Sunday. 

The Spirits of the Air of Friday are subject to the West- 
winde ; their nature is to give silver ; to excite men, and 
incline them to luxury ; and to make marriages ; to allure 
men to love women ; to cause or take away infirmities ; 
and to do all things which ha.ve motion. 

Considerations of Saturday, or the Sabbath Day. 

The Angel of Saturday, his Seal, his Planet, and the 
Signe governing the Planet. 




The Angels of Saturday : Cassiel, Machatan, Uriel. 

The Angels of the Air ruling on Saturday : Maymon, 
King. 

Ministers : Abumalith, Assaibi, Balidet, 

The winde which the said Angels of the Air aforesaid are 
under : The Southwest-winde. 

The fumigation of Saturday : Sulphur. 

It is already declared in the Consideration of Thursday, 
that there are no Angels ruling the Air, above the fifth 
heaven ; therefore in the four angles of the world, use those 
Orations which you see applied to that purpose on Thurs- 
day. 



379 

The Conjuration of Saturday. 
" I Conjure and Confirm upon you, Caphriel or Cassiel, 
Machator, and Seraquiel, strong and powerful Angels ; and 
by the name Adonay, Eie, AcimjCados, Lord and Maker of 
the world, who rested on the seventh day ; and by the 
names of the Angels serving in the seventh host, before 
Booel, a great Angel and powerful Prince ; and by the 
name of his Star, which is Saturn ; and by his holy Seal ; 
and by the names before spoken, I Conjure upon thee 
Caphriel, who art chiefe ruler of the seventh day, which is 
the Sabbath day, that for me thou labour," etc., as it is set 
down in the Conjuration of the Lord's day. 

The Spirits of the Air of Saturday are subject to the 
Southwest-winde ; the nature of them is to sow discords, 
hatred, evil thoughts and cogitations ; to give lea^ve freely 
to slay and kill every one, and to lame or maim every 
member. Their manner of appearing is declared in the 
former book. 

Of tbe Names of the Hours and the Angels Ruling Them. 

It is also to be known, that the Angels do rule the hours 
in a successive order, according to the course of the Hea- 
vens and Planets unto which they are subject, so that 
that spirit which governeth the day, ruleth also the 
first hour of the day ; the second from this governeth the 
second hour ; the third, the third hour, and so consequently ; 
and when seven Planets and hours have made their revo- 
lution, it returneth again to the first which ruleth the day : 
therefore, we shall first speak of the names of the hours. 

Hours of the day : 1. Yain, 2. Janor, 3. Nasmia, 4. 
Salla, 5. Sadedalia, 6. Thamur, 7. Ourer, 8. Thamic, 9. 
Neron, 10. Jayon, 11. Abai, 12. Natalon. 

Hours of the night : 1. Beron, 2. Barol, 3, Thami, 4. 
Athar, 5. Methon, 6. Rana, 7. Netos, 8. Infrac, 9. Sassur, 
10. Agio, 11. Calerva, 12. Salam. 



380 

Tables of the Angels of the Hours According to the 
Course of the Da yes. 
Sunday. — Angels of the hours of the day : 1, Michael, 

2. Anael, 3. Raphael, 4. Gabriel, 5. Cassiel, 6. Sachiel, 

7. Samael, 8. Michael, 9. Anael, 10. Raphael, 11. Gabriel, 
12. Cassiel. 

Angels of the hours of the night: 1. Sachiel, 2. Samael, 

3. Michael, 4. Anael, 5. Raphael, 6. Gabriel, 7. Cassiel, 

8. Sachiel, 9. Samael, 10. Michael, 11. Anael, 12. 
Raphael. 

MuNDAY. — Angels of the hours of the day : 1. Gabriel, 

2. Cassiel, 3. Sachiel, 4. Samael, 5. Michael, 6. Anael, 7. 
Raphael, 8. Gabriel, 9. Cassiel, 10. Sachiel, 11. Samael, 
12. Michael. 

Angels of the hours of the night : 1. Anael, 2. Raphael, 

3. Gabriel, 4. Cassiel, 5. Sachiel, 6. Samael, 7. Michael, 
8. Anael, 9. Raphael, 10. Gabriel, 11. Cassiel, 12. Sachiel. 

Tuesday. — Angels of the hours of the day: 1. Samael, 

2, Michael, 3. Anael, 4. Raphael, 5. Gabriel, 6. Cassiel, 

7. Sachiel, 8. Samael, 9, Michael, 10. Anael, 11. Raphael, 
12. Gabriel. 

Angels of the hours of the night: 1. Cassiel, 2. Sachiel, 

3. Samael, 4. Michael, 5. Anael, 6, Raphael, 7. Gabriel, 8. 
Cassiel, 9. Sachiel, 10. Samael, 11 Michael, 12. Anael. 

Wednesday. — Angels of the hours of the day : 1. Ra- 
phael, 2. Gabriel, 3. Cassiel, 4. Sachiel, 5. Samael, 6. 
Michael, 7. Anael, 8. Raphael, 9. Gabriel, 10. Cassiel, 
11. Sachiel, 12 Samael. 

Angels of the hours of the night: 1. Michael, 2. Anael, 
3. Raphael, 4. Gabriel, 5. Cassiel, 6. Sachiel, 7. Samael, 

8. Michael, 9. Anael, 10. Raphael, 11. Gabriel, 12. Cas- 
siel. 

Thursdays — Angels of the hours of the day : 1. Sachael, 
2. Samael, 3. Michael, 4. Anael, 6. Raphael, 6. Gabriel, 



381 

7. Cassiel, 8. Sachiel, 9. Samael, 10. Michael, 11. Anael, 
12. Raphael. 

Angels of the hours of the night: 1 Gabriel, 2. Cassiel, 
3. Sachiel, 4. Samael, 5. Michael, 6. Anael, 7. Raphael, 

8. Gabriel, 9. Cassiel, 10. Sachiel, 11. Samael, 12. Michael. 
Friday. — Angels of the hours of the day : 1. Anael, 2. 

Raphael, 3. Gabriel, 4. Cassiel, 5. Sachiel, 6. Samael, 7. Mi- 
chael, 8. Anael, 9. Raphael, 10. Gabriel, 11. Cassiel, 12. 
Sachiel. 

Angels of the hours of the night : 1. Samael, 2. Michael, 
3. Anael, 4. Raphael, 5. Gabriel, 6. Cassiel, 7. Sachiel, 8. 
Samael, 9. Michael, 10. Anael, 11. Raphael, 12. Gabriel. 

Saturday. — Angels of the hours of the day : 1. Cassiel, 
2. Sachiel, 3. Samael, 4. Michael, 5. Anael, 6. Raphael, 
7. Gabriel, 8. Cassiel, 9. Sachiel, 10. Samael, 11. Michael, 
12. Anael. 

Angels of the hours of the night : 1. Raphael, 2. Ga- 
briel, 3. Cassiel, 4. Sachiel, 5. Samael, 6. Michael, 7. 
Anael, 8. Raphael, 9. Gabriel, 10. Cassiel, 11. Sachiel, 12. 
Samael. 

But this is to be observed by the way, that the first hour 
of the day, of every Country, and in every season what- 
soever, is to be assigned to the sun-rising, when he first 
appeareth arising in the horizon ; and the first hour of the 
night is to be the thirteenth hour, from the first hour of 
the day ; but of these things it is sufficiently spoken. 

[The worthy "Pupil," or rather student and admirer of the great Cornelius 
Agrippa, iu his introduction to the Magical Elements of Peter d'Abano conveys 
the impression to the reader's mind that the " Heptameron'" given above, was writ- 
ten after the time of Agrippa, as a digest of that great Sage's magical method. 
Those who are versed in the lives and chronological appearances of the Alchemists 
are aware that Peter d'Abano flourished some two hundred years earlier than 
Agrippa, whilst Robert Turner's Compendium of the philosophy of both was 
"done into Buglish" nearly two centuries later than the period of Agrippa's birth. 
Though Abano's method is decidedly the same as Agrippa's, the Translator has 
wisely given the former credit for superior perspicuity of style, hence the above 
selection of Abano's Heptameron.] 



382 



SECTION XX. 

Swiiwiary of Cornelius Agrippa* s PMloso2Jhy — Paracelsus 
— tJie poioer of tlie Magnet and Will — Witchcraft — the 
case of Jane BrooJcs. 

Although there are many remarkable features of inter- 
est in the writings of Cornelius Agrippa, we deem it mme- 
cessary to give farther citations ol magical practices. The 
reader, desirous to accomplish himself in the Magician's 
art, would derive but little encouragement from a study of 
Agrippa's works, especially as he repeatedly affirms that 
"a man must be born a Magician from his mother's womb." 
This passage, with others of a kindred character, plainly 
imply the great Magician's belief, that what we have so 
often termed naturally prophetic^ or Mecliumistic endoivments, 
are far more available to procure communion with, and 
control of spirits, than any arts which he can recommend. 
Again and again, too, Agrippa enlarges on the potency of 
the will to produce magical results. His opinion of this 
great instrument of power is conveyed in the following 
quaint passage : 

" Not-withstandiiig the use of all these signs, ami whether or uo the Magician 
shall malce every pentacle duly, and write every name in order, even if he do 
speak all which is here set down in every circumstance ; j'et, when no spirit com- 
eth, it is the mind of the invocaut which doth fail him, for all these things are but 
as winds, which do blow on the temper of the mind, to stir it up to acti(m." " Un- 
less a man be born a Magician, and God have destined him even from his birth to the 
work, so that spirits do willingly come of their own accord — which doth happen 
to few — a man must use only of the things herein set down, or written in our 
other books of occult philosophy, as means to fix the mind upon the work to be 
done ; for it is in the power of the mind itself that spirits do come and go, and 
magical works are done, and all things in nature are but as uses to induce the will 
to rest upon the point desired." 

Agrippa, like Dee, Lilly, and other professors of the as- 



383 

trological art, teaches that it is an exact science, which can 
be learned and practiced independently of other magical 
formulae. In this as in his ceremonial directions, the great 
philosopher's language is too involved to be available to the 
general reader. 

Next to Cornelius Agrippa one of the most famous of 
all the middle age Mystics was Paracelsus, a Physician, 
Philosopher and writer, whose usefulness and practical 
sense justly entitle him to the high rank assigned him as 
the founder of a new and revolutionary system of practice 
in the curative art. Whilst his voluminous works form a 
perfect storehouse of suggestive thought and ideality in the 
realm of metaphysics, our space will only allow us to no- 
tice the remarkable uses which he claimed to have discov- 
ered by the application of the magnet and the potency of the 
human will in the cure of disease. Paracelsus himself af- 
firms, that he relied chiefly on those two elements of power 
for effecting the many extraordinary cures attributed to 
him. 

The famous " weapon salve," by which he was said to 
heal the most dangerous wounds, simply through anoint- 
ing the weapons which had inflicted them, — was no doubt 
only a means of psychological effect analogous to those 
now so familiarly in use amongst Electro-biologists. Be- 
ing as the narrative of his life proves, a powerful magneti- 
zer and still more potential psychologist, the effects he pro- 
duced through these supreme agencies, naturally enough 
seemed miraculous in the Byes of an ignorant and supersti- 
tious community, hence it would be difficult to credit all 
the extraordinary achievements and magical performances 
attributed to him, without an understanding of the true 
secret of his power. Paracelsus wrote many elaborate 
treatises on the occult virtues of herbs, precious stones, 
gems, and crystals. He himself was a fine clairvoyant and 



384 



accomplished in the faculty of crystal seeing. Hence 
arose the belief that he kept a familiar spirit imprisoned 
in a splendid crystal which he wore in the hilt of his 
sword, and that from this demon he derived his them^gic 
powers and remarkable gifts of healing. 

Paracelsus was a bitter opponent of the then popular 
system of drug medication, and as his denunciations of 
Apothecaries' nostrums, and medical charlatanism, were 
fulminated with all the unsparing violence of an impulsive 
and fearless opponent, it is no wonder that he was loaded 
with opprobrium by the rival practitioners of his ' time, 
fiercely denounced by one party, and as extravagantly eu- 
logized by another, hence his real claims to consideration 
as a bold and scientific innovator, and an original discov- 
erer, have scarcely received justice at the hands of posterity. 
The following brief excerpts from his treatise on the Mag- 
net, and his views of the potency of the human will, afford 
some insight into the basic ideas of his philosophy. 

Paeacblsus. 




Front ti fure pfiitt in the Strashoiirtf Voilnctioii. 

He says: 

" The magnet ha« lain before all eyes, yet uo one has ever thought whether it 
was of any further use than that of attracting iron. The sordid doctors throw it 
in my face that I will not follow the ancients. But in what should I follow them V 
All that they have said of the magnet is nothing save what every peasant sees ; 



385 



namely, that it attracts iron. But a wise man must enquire and experiment for 
himself, and thus it is that I have discovered that the magnet possesses quite an- 
other, though concealed power, from that visible to every one." 

" In sickness you must lay the magnet in the centre from whence the sickness 
proceeds. The magnet has two poles — an attracting and a repelling one. It is 
not a matter of indifference how these poles are applied : for instance ; where the 
attack affects the head, it is proper to lay four magnets on the lower part of the 
body, with the attracting pole turned upwards, and on the head place only one 
with tte reflecting pole downwards, and then you bring other means to your aid." 
" I cure by this means : epilepsy, defiuxions of the eyes, ears, nose, and all man- 
ner of diseases." "I find such secrets hidden in the magnet that with- 
out it I could in many cases have eifected nothing." 

The religious and magical philosophy of Paracelsus, is 
essentially that of the Cabala, from which he derived, not 
only his .views of Creation, Deity^ angelic essences, the 
doctrine of emanations, etc., but hints concerning the oc- 
cult secrets of nature, which he, as a practical and scien- 
tific Physician, utilized in his system of cure, by herbs, 
magnetic crystals, and psychological impressions. 

Although often quoted in fragmentary sketches of Para- 
celsite philosophy, we deem the following opinions con- 
cerning the power of the human will eminently worthy to 
be noted in a book of magic, and more illustrative of the 
real mind of the philosopher than the vague and shadowy 
speculations of so many of his followers. In the Stras- 
bourg edition of Paracelsus's voluminous writings, he says : 

" It is possible that my spirit, without the help or my body may through a fiery 
will alone, and loitliout a sword, stab and wound others." 

" It is also possible that I can bring my adversary's spirit into an image (ivraith), 
then double him up, and lame him at pleasure. You are to know that the will is a 
most potent operator in medicine. Man can hang a disease on man or beast through 
curses, but it does not take effect through an image of virgin wax, but by means 

of the strength of fixed will." " Determined imagination is the beginning 

of all magical operations. It is a spell from toJiich there is no escape l>ut hy revers- 
ing the operator's intent." "The imagination of another may be able to 

kill me or save me." "ISTo armor protects me against magic, for it in- 
jures the inward spirit of life. " "The human spirit is so great a thing 

that no man can express it. God himself is unchangeable and almighty, so also 
is the mind of man." "If we rightly esteemed the power of man's mind, nothing 
on earth would be impossible to him." 

It would be needless to offer further quotations Iroiii the 



386 

writino^s of the numerous mystics who flourished from the 
thirteenth up to the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. 

The doctrines of the famous Rosicrucians have already 
been sufficiently noted. Of their existence or even origin 
as an order, we do not feel called upon to dilate, neither 
would such a discussion throw any additional light on 
that art which we have shown in former sections to be de- 
pendent upon natural endowments, or methods of culture 
sufficiently defined for all practical purposes. It only re- 
mains now for us to analyze somewhat more in detail than 
formerly, the characteristics of that wonderful and myster- 
ious drama which occupied such a prominent place during 
the middle ages under the title of Witchcraft. 

Although the narratives on this subject are so numerous, 
and accounts of the trials in various countries so fully set 
forth in the writings of many eminent authorities, that any 
reiteration of them in this place would be superfluous, still 
we feel that more attention has been given to the detail of 
events than to the elimination of a philosophy, the attempts 
at explanation rendered by the Savants of the time being 
limited to the universal solvent of the Devil and his Imps, 
and those of the modern Spiritualists to the sole agency of 
the spirits of deceased persons. 

When we can obtain a fair statement and a scientific 
classification of the phenomena exhibited in this weird 
movement, we shall assuredly find a broad field of action 
left untouched by either of these inefficacious attempts at 
explanation. 

In the first place a large mass of the accusations were 
fictitious, especially in the case of those victims of the popu- 
lar fury, whose age, helplessness, and ignorance, rendered 
them fit subjects for superstitious dread. Still another 
class were unconsciously and perhaps involuntarily, the 
victims — not of beneficent or even undeveloped human 



387 

spirits — whose intelligence and humanity would have led 
them to manifest their presence in human modes — but of 
Elementaries, whose sub-mundane propensities were exhib- 
ited in animal actions, and deeds of folly and malignity, 
which favored the popular idea of a Satanic origin. It 
must be remembered that there is as much irrationality in 
wholesale and obstinate skepticism, as in credulity. The 
trials for witchcraft and the numerous narratives put forth 
concerning it, prove that there existed a certain family re- 
semblance amongst its details which suggests a basis of 
facts even for the most exaggerated accusations. For ex- 
ample : The " spectres" or " wraiths" of the accused, were 
frequently seen apart from their bodies. The modern 
Psychologist must be aware that the phenomenon of the 
^' dop-p el ganger^'' or the apparition of the '^ living spirit," is 
too well established a phenomenon to be denied. 

Many of the accused confessed to the practice of an- 
ointing their bodies with the famous " witch salve," largely 
composed of Napellus, Aconite, Belladonna, Henbane, and 
other herbs which notoriously produce the sensation of 
flging through the air. 

May we not here find a clue to the universal idea, that 
these self-deluded beings — who, in some instances at least, 
flattered themselves that they could communicate with 
occult powers by occult practices — actually induced the 
sensations and visions they related by the narcotics they 
indulged in 7 None can deny that the aspiration after 
the unknown, and the longing to communicate with the 
invisible world, to say nothing of the attempts to improve 
upon miserable human conditions by the aid of infernal 
or any available arts that could be arrived at — have stimu- 
lated humanity in every age ; hence, let us be just, and 
whilst we may and must admit that a fearful amount of 
superstitious error prevailed on the subject of witchcraft, 



388 

and an incalculable sum of cruelty and sacrifice of human 
life was the consequence, we must still allow that there 
was a substratum of truth in the universal belief, which 
the ignorance of the age could not separate from malevo- 
lent accusations against innocent persons, and which the 
superstition of the time could not reduce into the applica- 
tion of true occult powers. 

It was clearly proved that some of the accused persons 
did at times make use of charms, spells, amulets, unguents, 
talismans, invocations, and other magical arts. 

The part of true philosophy should be to consider 
whether any of these jDractices contain elements of 
potency — not to dismiss them all as idle and baseless 
superstitions. Is it possible to suppose that such arts 
should have been handed down from the days of Moses, 
and perhaps for thousands of years previous, and surviving 
all the changes of time, and human opinion, continue to 
crop out in every age and country, unless they originated 
in some foundation of natural law ? As we shall devote 
the next section to a review of the possibilities that belong 
to this occult and ill-understood subject, we close this ne- 
cessarily brief review of the Witchcraft mania, by present- 
ing one illustration of that most common of all its phe- 
nomenal phases, which proves the unconscious, yet poten- 
tial action of Magnetism and Psychology. Although the 
narrative we select is one which the zeal of Glanville, 
from whose writings we quote it, has made familiar, doubt- 
less, to most of our readers, we deem it the best illustra- 
tion we can offer of a majority of the cases for which so 
many unfortunates suffered the horrors of the rack and 
stake. 

Glanville, Chaplain to Charles II, of England, writing 
in defense of the truth of Witchcraft, or rather its actu- 
ality, as it occurred in the seventeenth century, says : 



389 

" On Sunday, 15th of November, 1657, about three of the clock in 
the afternoon, Richard Jones, then a sprightly youth about twelve years 
old, son of Henry Jones, of Shepton Mallet, in the county of Somer- 
set, being in his father's house alone, and perceiving some one looking 
in at the windows, went to the door, where one Jane Brooks of the same 
town (but then by name unknown to this boy) came to him. She de- 
sired him to give her a piece of close bread, and gave him an apple. 
After which she also stroked him down on the right side, shook him by the 
hand, and so bid him good-7iight. The youth returned to the house, where 
he had been left well, when his father and one Gibson went from him ; 
but at their return, which was within an hour, they found him ill and 
complaining of his right side, in which the pain continued the most part 
of that night. And on Monday following, in the evening, the boy roasted 
the apple he had of Jane Brooks, and having eaten about half of it, was 
extremely ill, and sometimes speechless, but being recovered, he told his 
father that a woman of the town on the Sunday before had given him 
that apple, and that she stroked him on the side. He said he knew not 
her name, but should her person if he saw her. Upon this Jones was 
advised to invite the women of Shepton to come to his house upon the 
occasion of his son's illness, and the child told him, that in case the 
woman should come in when he was in his Fit, if he were not able to 
speak, he would give him an intimation by a jogg, and desired that his 
father would then lead him through the room, for he said he would put 
his hand upon her if she were there. After this, he continuing very ill, 
many women came daily to see him. And Jane Brooks the Sunday 
after came in with two of her sisters, when several other women of the 
neighborhood were there. 

" Upon her coming in, the boy was taken so ill that for some time he 
could not see nor speak; but having recovered his sight, he gave his father 
the Item, and he led him about the room. The boy drew towards Jane 
Brooks, who was behind her two sisters among the other women, and 
put his hand upon her, which his father perceiving, immediately scratched 
her face and drew blood from her. The youth then presently cried out 
that he was well, and so continued seven or eight days ; but then meet- 
ing with Alice Coward, sister to Jane Brooks, who, passing by, said to 
him: ' How do you, my Honey .?' he presently fell ill again. And after 
that, the said Coward and Brooks often appeared to him. The boy would 
describe the clothes and habit they were in at the time exactly, as the constable 
and others have found upon repairing to them, though Brooks' house was at a 
good distance Jrom Jones' . This they often tryed and always found the 
boy right in his descriptions. 



390 



" On a certain Sunday about noon, the child being in a room with 
his father and one Gibson, and in his 7?/, he on the sudden called out 
that he saw Jane Brooks on the wall, and pointed to the place, where im- 
mediately Gibson struck with a knife ; upon which the boy cried out : 'O, 
father, Coz. Gibson hath cut Jane Brooks' hand and 'tis bloody. ' The 
father and Gibson immediately repaired to the constable, a discreet per- 
son, and acquainting him with what had passed, desired him to go with 
them to Jane Brooks' house, which he did. They found her sitting in 
her room on a stool with one hand over the other. The constable asked 
her how she did .'' She answered, not well. He asked again why she 
sate with one hand over the other.? She replied, she ivas wont to do so. 
He enquired if anything were amiss with her hand .? Her answer was, 
it was well enough. The constable desired that he might see the hand 
that was under; which, she being unwilling to show him, he drew out 
and found it bloody, according to what the boy had said. Being asked 
how it came so, she said, I was stratched with a great pin." 

"On the 8th of December, 1657, the Boy, Jane Brooks and Alice 
Coward, appeared at Castle Gary, before the Justices, M. Hunt and M. 
Cary. The Boy having begun to give his testimony, upo7i the coming in 
of the two women, and their looking on him, was instantly taken speechless, 
and so remained till the women were removed out of the room, and then 
in a short time, upon examination, he gave a full relation of the men- 
tioned particulars. 

"On the iith of January following, the Buy was again examined be- 
fore the same Justices at Shepton Mallet, and upon sight of Jane Brooks 
was again taken speechless, but was not so afterwards when Alice Coward 
came into the room to him. 

" On the next appearance at Shepton, which was on the 17th of Feb- 
ruary, there were present many gentlemen, ministers and others ; the 
Boy fell into his fit upon the sight of fane Brooks, and lay in a man's arms 
like a dead person ; the woman was then willed to lay her hand on him, which 
she did, and he thereupon started and sprang out in a very strange and un- 
usual manner. One of the Justices, to prevent all possibilities of Leger- 
demain, caused Gibson and the rest to stand off from the boy, and then 
the fustice himself held him. The youth being blindfolded, the Justice called 
as if Brooks should touch him, but winked to others to doit, which two 
or three successively did, but the boy appeared not concerned. The Justice 
then called on the father to take him, but had privately before desired 
Mr. Geoffry Strode to bring /a«^ Brooks to touch him, at such time as he 
should call for his father ; which was done, and the boy immediately sprang 
out after a very odd and violent fashion. He was after touched by several 



391 

persons and moved not ; but Jane Brooks being caused to put her hand up- 
on him, he started and sprang out twice or thrice^ as before. All this while 
he remained in his fit, and sometime after ; and being then laid on a bed in 
the same room, the people present could not for a long time bow either of his 
arms or legs. " 

" Between the mentioned 15th of November and the i ith of January, 
the two women appeared often to the Boy, their hands cold, their eyes 
staring, and their lips and cheeks looking pale. In this manner on a 
Thursday about noon, the Boy being newly laid into his bed, Jane 
Brooks and Alice Coward appeared to him, and told him that what they 
had begun, they could not perform, but if he would say no more of it, 
they would give him money, and so put a two-pence into his pocket. After 
which they took him out of his bed, laid him on the ground, and van- 
ished ; and the boy was found by those that came next into the room, 
lying on the floor, as if he had been dead. The two-pence was seen by 
many, and when it was put into the fire, and hot, the boy wouldfallill ; but 
as soon as it was taken out, and cold, he would be again as well as be- 
fore. This was seen and observed by a minister, a discreet person, when 
the boy was in one room and the two-pence {without his knowledge') put into the 
fire in another ; and this was divers times tried in the presence of several 
persons. 

"On the 25th of February between two and three in the afternoon, 
the boy being at the house of Richard Isles at Shepton Mallet, went out 
of the room into the garden; Isles's wife followed him, and was within 
two yards when she saw him rise up from the ground before her, and so 
mounted higher and higher, till he passed in the air over the garden 
wall, and was carried so above ground more than 30 yards, falling at 
last at one Jordan's door at Shepton, where he was found as dead for a 
time. But coming to himself, told Jordan that Jane Brooks had taken 
him up by the arm out of Isles's garden, and carried him in the air, as 
related. 

" The Boy at several other times was gone on the suddain, and upon 
search, after him found in another room as dead, and at sometimes 
strangely hanging above ground, his hands being flat against a great beam 
in the top of the room, and all his body two or three feet from ground. 
There he hath hung a quarter of an hour together ; and being afterwards 
come to himself, he told those that found him that Jane Brooks had car- 
ried him to that place and held him there. Nine people at a time saw 
the boy so strangely hanging by the beam. 

" From the 15th of November to the loth of March following, he was 
by reason of his fits much wasted in his body, and unspirited ; but after 



392 

that time, being the day the two women were sent to Gaol, he had no 
more of those fits. 

' ' Jane Brooks was condemned and executed at Charde Assizes, March 
26th, 1658. 

"This is the sum of M. Hunt's narrative, which concludes with both 
the justices' attestation, thus; — 'The aforesaid passages were some of 
them seen by us, and the rest, and some other remarkable ones not here 
set down, were, upon examination of several credible witnesses, taken 
upon Oath before us. 

(Signed) " 'Robert Hunt. 

' ' ' ToHN Gary. 

Thousands, and tens of thousands of narratives have 
been already published on the subject of Witchcraft, some 
colored by the wildest exaggerations, others circumstantial 
in detail, and as matter-of-fact as the one quoted above — 
all tend to prove the existence of unknown and occult 
forces pervading human history, equally influential upon 
individuals and communities, and perpetually challenging 
the attention of the wise and philosophic for a classifica- 
tion of the facts, and the evolvement of some basic prin- 
ciples of spiritual science by which to explain, govern and 
control them. 



MftttkewHonkms^Witcli- Tmclcr Genemll 




Tryalle of a Witch before Matthew Hopkins, 
Portraits of My Imps." 



(From a Very Rare Print.) 



393 



SECTION XXI. 

Magical Elements— Yarions kinds of Dimnation — Ara- 
bian Belomancy — Elisha and the Arrows — Cleomancy, 
Geomancy — Crystal Seeing — Bath Kol, Chiromancy, 
<&c., &c. — Of Stones, Oems, Colors and Sounds — The 
Color Doctor — Music — Rosicrucian Ideas of Light and 
Music — Spells, Amulets, Talismans, Witchcraft. 

It has been intimated in various parts of this volume 
that the ancients attached the idea of occult virtue to 
herbs, plants, flowers, earths, minerals, metals, certain 
beasts, insects and reptiles, colors, tones, words, forms, 
magical names, invocations, spells, charms, talismans and 
fumigations. 

Every object that could impress the senses — stimulate 
them to mantic frenzy, or subdue them into somnambulism, 
formed some element in ancient magical practice. We 
have written of the faith which all nations of antiquity 
cherished in astrological calculations, and unhesitatingly 
affirmed that the foundations for that faith exist to-day in 
as much force as in the Chaldaic Era, and that the basic 
idea of astrological truth is to be found in the fundamental 
principles which bind up the whole universe in one com- 
pendious system of mutual interdependencies. 

Divination was also obtained through an immense va- 
riety of modes, chief amongst which were those already 
alluded to in the Section on Jewish Magic. Another was 
performed amongst the Arabians by the flight of arrows, 
and called Belomancy. Some allusion to this method is 
made in the Bible when Elisha the Prophet in his last 
hours was consulted by King Joash, whom he commanded 



394 

to take bow and arrows and shoot forth irom the window 
saying, " the arrow of the Lord's deliverance, and the 
arrow of deliverance from Syria," &c., &c. 

In the Arabian method it was customary to write on 
slips of paper, and attach them to the arrows, when, accord- 
ing to the place in which they alighted, or the object 
which they struck, so was the inscribed sentence accepted 
as oracular. 

At the celebrated Temple of Hercules, in Achaia, the 
priests were accustomed to obtain oracular replies by the 
tossing of dice or marked stones ; this mode was called 
Cleomancy. 

Cicero describes several modes of divining by birds, in 
which their color, the number in a flock, their direction, 
and divers other minutige were accepted as auguries for 
good or evil. 

Sacrificial rites were in all ancient countries deemed 
infallible means of Soothsaying. The motions of the vic- 
tim, his struggles or submission, the condition of the in- 
testines, the du^ection of the smoke, and other items too 
numerous and too petty to be dwelt on, were all deemed 
indications of the deepest moment, and on them, often de- 
pended the fate of nations, and the destiny of Kings. 
There were several modes of divination by water, by the 
swinging of rings, or other light objects suspended from 
sacred books, which were deemed infallible as portents. 
To this species of chance divination belongs that method 
so elaborately described by Cornelius Agrippa, but invent- 
ed ages before his time, called " Geomancy," that is, divi- 
nation by points or dots set down at random. This mode 
was supposed to be practiced by the Persian Magi, who 
made clefts in the ground, and then, from the numbers of 
marks lound, they composed a magical figure, which they 
interpreted into an oracle. From the use of the ground 
as the tablet of inscription, comes the term "Geomancy." 



395 

Endless are the practices by which the ancients sought 
to obtain that divine direction which they prized, far 
above all earthly counsel or human judgment. They cul- 
tivated the art of crystal seeing, gazing into mirrors and 
still water to obtain visions. They attached especial im- 
portance to dreams, and often accepted as oracular the 
voices of passers by, and the sentences they uttered, as 
they sat waiting by the wayside, or at the gates of their 
Temples " for a sign." This method amongst the Jews 
was termed Bath-Kol^ or the Daughter of a voice^ and was 
used by them when the mysterious tones of the spirit who 
was wont to speak from between the Cherubim and Sera- 
phim became hushed torever. 

Chiromancy, or the art of divining by the lines of the 
hand, still maintains its hold upon the faith of a goodly 
number of modern votaries. Amongst the Sybilline peo- 
ple skillful to a proverb in this art, are the Gipsies of Eng- 
land, the Zingari of Spain, and the Bohemians of Paris. 
The success of these vagrant wanderers in reading the 
character, and not unfrequently the destiny of those whose 
hands they examine, has often been attributed to clairvoy- 
ance, a gift peculiar to most nomadic tribes, especially to 
the Arabians and Gipsies, still there are not wanting men 
of mark and learning who claim as much for Palmistry or 
Chiromancy as for Physiognomy or even Phrenology. 

In this art, as in Geomancy, astrological science is called 
into play, as it is claimed the hand is the chart of the 
whole body, and as this is under astral and solar control, 
so the peculiar shape of the hand and the lines on its inner 
surface indicate planetary configurations, which bear an 
immediate relation to destiny, and the influence of the 
stars. 

Pythagoras attached the utmost importance to the given 
name of individuals, and the number of letters it contained. 



396 

and this belief prevailed so generally amongst many of 
the Grecian philosophers, that it became reduced to a sort 
of science, and obtained the title of Onomancy. 

In Wm. Howitt's delightful sketches of Rural Life in 
Gevmanij^ and Ennemoser's Histon/ of Magic, are whole 
chapters concerning the popular superstitions of the middle? 
aye, and later ages too. in which almost every motion, 
and every object, becomes interpreted into an omen. 

Doubtless it is from the alternations of fear and hope, 
between which man is forever oscillating, as he pursues 
his toilsome pilgrimage through life's rough and . rugged 
paths, that he so continually ransacks nature to her in- 
most depths, to discover signs of warning or encourage- 
ment to guide him. And are these signs so entirely un- 
reliable 1 Is this research so utterly fruitless ? Is not man 
the creature of Nature as much as of God 7 Built up of 
her whole three lower kingdoms, drinking from her rivers 
and fountains, inhaling her breathing winds, constantly 
shedding impalpable emanations to feed her vegetable king- 
dom, and as constantly receiving in exchange the aromal 
essences of all that earth contains ; how deep, how inti- 
mate must be the sympathy between this microcosmic man 
and all things else in being ! Whatever this planet may 
be interiorly, all its separate parts must be organs of " one 
stupendous whole." The men of the wilds of Africa can- 
not be dissevered from the intluences which convulse their 
western brothers. The air, the tides, the secret crypts of 
earth traversed by magnetic currents and electric fires, are 
links which bind the inhabitants of every land in one un- 
broken chain of harmony. Does the brow ache without 
the hand becoming heavy 7 Does fever scorch the veins 
without exhibiting its lurid light in the glittering eye 7 
Can we injure one single fibre without a sympathetic thrill 
quivering through the entire system ? Then why sneer 



397 

at the idea that the separate parts of nature — all organs, 
and essential ones, too, in her sublime structure — should so 
sympathetically act and react with each other, that those 
who can read one part may comprehend the whole, or 
those who feel the pang that rends her heart, will be sure 
her sacred frame will shudder, even to the farthest ex- 
tremities of being ! As man is the crowning apex of all 
created forms, as in him are centred all powers, forces, 
and elements that compose the natural body of the planet, 
is it not reasonable to suppose that all the lesser parts are 
in subjection to him, and in sympathetic rapport with his 
destiny ? We may mistake the indications of these deep 
sympathies, and, in our egotism, imagine they cluster too 
thickly around our own individual pathway. Still they 
exist, and only need a scientific, instead of an imaginative 
understanding of their profound utterances, to show us that 
all nature is a grand volume, in which the hieroglyphics 
of universal being are inscribed in characters of immutable 
fate ; in sand-grains and mountains, in daisies and forest 
trees, in ocean billows and murmuring brooklets, in chirp- 
ing insects and the peals of heaven's artillery, in fluttering 
wings of birds and hovering angels. 

The great and wise Swedenborg often mistook the art 
of correspondences, but never the truth of the science 
itself. 

The Magians of old, better instructed in the occult 
powers of nature than we, who have strayed so far from 
her revealments in the paths of artifice, comprehended the 
laws of sympathy existing between all orders of being and 
man ; hence their correct interpretation of signs, tokens, 
omens and monitions. They understood that all nature 
rendered homage to man, and that a quiver shook her 
mighty frame in response to every chord struck on the harp 
of life by man's master hand. We have no sucli knowl- 
edge now, and so little interior light to guide us that the 



398 

signs fail, the tokens are misunderstood, and the attempts 
we make to force them into meaning, betray us into error 
and convert the child-like faiths of antiquity, into vain 
superstition. 

Of Stones, Gems and Coloes. 

The splendid array of experiments by which Baron Von 
Reichenbach has, within the last half century and under the 
most stringent test conditions, proved that magnetic ema- 
nations streamed from shells, stones and crystals, display- 
ing different degrees of force and different shades of color, 
form and radiance, supplement the opinions of the most 
authoritative writers of different ages on the same subject. 

That all metals and crystalline bodies give off magnetic 
force, is now proved beyond question ; that they are capa- 
ble of producing somnambulic or ecstatic effects in different 
degrees, Von Reichenbach's experiments, with over a hun- 
dred and fifty sensitives, have abundantly demonstrated ; 
hence we may be justified in regarding with some inter- 
est, the classification of the different qualities of minerals 
and precious stones, put forth by Rabbi Benoni, a learned 
writer of the fourteenth century, said to be one of the 
most profound Alchemists of his time, who alleges that 
" the loadstone, sapphire and diamond are all capable of 
producing Somnambulism, and when combined into a talis- 
man, attract such powerful Planetary Spirits, as render the 
bearer almost invincible." All precious stones when cut 
with smooth surfaces and intently gazed upon, are capable 
of producing somnambulism in the same degree as the crys- 
tal, also of inducing visions. ~ 

Their varieties of color prove that they absorb different 
degrees of light, and they are said to impart unequal de- 
grees of heat. The Buddhists esteemed the sapphire 
above all gems, claiming that it produces tranquility of 
mind, and when worn by one wholly pure and devoted to 



399 

God, ensures protection against disease, danger, and ven- 
omous reptiles. 

Orpheus exalts the virtues of the loadstone almost as 
highly as did Paracelsus that of the Magnet. — The former 
says : " With this stone you can hear the voices of the 
Gods, and learn heavenly things." 

" It will confer strength, banish disease, and when worn 
constantly about the person, ward off epidemics and 
plagues. Sitting down before it and fixing your gaze earn- 
estly upon it, you have but to ask of the Gods for light on 
any subject, and the answer will come breathed out through 
the stone. Your soul will hear it, and your senses will dis- 
cover it clearly." Orpheus says of stones in general : 
" The earth produces every good and evil to man, but she 
also provides a remedy for every ill. These are to be found 
chiefly in stones. Every virtue lays hidden within them," 

Benoni affirms that the diamond will deprive the load- 
stone of its virtue, and is the most powerful of all stones to 
promote spiritual ecstasy. Amongst a great variety of 
similar aphorisms he says : '' The agate quenches thirst 
if held in the mouth, and soothes fever. 

" The amethyst banishes the desire for drink, and pro- 
motes chastity. 

" The garnet preserves health and joy. 

'• The sapphire impels to all good things like the dia- 
mond. 

" The red coral is a cure for indigestion, when worn 
constantly about the person. 

" Amber is a cure for sore throat and glandular swell- 
ings. 

" The crystal promotes sweet sleep and good dreams. 

" The Emerald promotes friendship and constancy of 
mind. 

" The onyx is a demon imprisoned in stone, who wakes 



400 

only of a night, causing terror and disturbance to sleepers 
who wear it. 

" The opal is fatal to love, and sows discord between 
the giver and receiver. 

" The topaz is favorable for all haemorrhages, and im- 
parts strength and good digestion." 

We give these quaint aphorisms not as guides or scien- 
tific indications, but to show the ideas which the latent 
powers of magnetic bodies suggested to observers of natural 
forces. As to the effect of colors on the mind, whatever 
physical influence they may be supposed to produce, it 
would be in vain to deny their peculiar efficacy in psy- 
chological effects. In Emma Hardinge's noble work " The 
History of Modern American Spiritualism," a chapter is 
devoted to the recital of that lady's interview with a sin- 
gular individual residing in St. Louis, Missouri, and pro- 
fessing to make cures by detecting the peculiar colors which 
belonged to certain organisms, the plus or minus of which — 
according to his theory — was the cause of all disease. This 
chapter, like every other line in this exhaustive treatise, is 
a mine ofpsychologic wealth. 

The " Color Doctor," as he was termed, being a verita- 
ble ecstatic, would, on the first entrance of his visitors, go 
through many of the extraordinary ^motions, gyrations and 
contortions peculiar to the Hindoo Fakeers. Having' in- 
duced in himself and his visitors the necessary condition 
of rapport, scenes amounting to mantic frenzy would ensue, 
during which he is reported to have effected the most won- 
derful and unaccountable cures. His particular theory of 
color influence, was demonstrated on the occasion of Emma 
Hardinge's visit, in the following manner : Placing the lady 
and several witnesses in one apartment, he, with an equal 
number of persons, remained in another, where no possi- 
ble chance could have permitted the one party to observe 



401 

the actions of the other, though all could hear and com- 
municate together. 

The Operator then touched a piece of cloth of a certain 
polor, upon which the lady in the next apartment became 
impelled to represent in pantomimic action some scene sig- 
nifying deep mental emotion, for example : when the 
Doctor held a piece of yellow cloth in his hand, the sub- 
ject immediately prostrated herself in the attitude of 
adoration, and uttered fervent prayers to the Deity. On 
assuming the color of scarlet, the subject became violently 
enraged and threatened war and destruction to all around 
her. A certain shade of grey caused the representation 
of a rattlesnake, and the signification of treachery ; pink 
occasioned great joy and gladness ; violet evidently deep- 
ened the spiritual afflatus, and wrapped the subject in 
heavenly contemplation ; green excited her aversion ; and 
blue restored her to perfect peace and equanimity, seeming, 
in fict, to represent her own nature. Many rapid changes 
were effected in the assumption of these and other colors • 
but always with the same effect, and unvarying fidelity of 
representation. The lady concludes a long and most won- 
derful narrative, witnessed as the scene was too, by several 
scientific and distinguished residents of St. Louis, by the 
following pertinent remarks : 

" When after two hours captivity to this fearful spell, I 
was at length released, and permitted to reflect upon the 
singularpart I had been compelled to play, the idea forced it- 
self upon my mind, that in this exhibition, was a complete 
arcanum of occult discovery. A clue was at once afforded 
me, to the strong predilections which I had always cherished 
for certain colors and my dislike to others. I remembered 
the same things of almost every one I knew, and felt certain 
that as colors corresponded to the passions of the human 
soul, so the predominance of special tendencies of mind 



402 



might be supposed to indicate a corresponding preponder- 
ance in the physical system, of special rays of color." 

Whether this theory be founded in truth or error, the 
fact remains that the weird Color Doctor of St. Louis, ef- 
fected many marvellous cures by imparting psychologically 
as he assumed, the particular rsiys of color in which some 
of his patients were deficient, or reducing those which pre- 
vailed to such an excess in others as to create inflamma- 
tion and disease. 

In the experiment above" related, he assured his visitors 
he used no psychological art whatever. He believed that 
special colors prevailed in special organisms, and that the 
plus or minus of the shade natural to them, caused dis- 
ease, but until the chance experiment which occurred 
through a chance visit of Mrs. Hardinge and her friends, 
he had no idea of the intimate relation of colors to the 
mental emotions, and the scene so briefly described above 
was as much a revelation to him as to the witnesses. 

In carefully conducted Seances for spiritual manifesta- 
tions, the Author and his mediumistic friends have fre- 
quently remarked the different shades of light which ema- 
nated from different individuals and sometimes attended 
the demonstrations of certain spirits, — also it has been no- 
ticed that spirits attached great importance to colors, and 
taught that in the spheres, where all things assume moral 
correspondences to physical objects, spirits were compelled 
to display their moral qualities and states of progression 
by the color of their garments, or the nature of the flow- 
ers, ornaments, or animal representations, with which they 
were surrounded. 

The reader may be assured there is a magical arcanum 
in color, the study of which would tend to promote much 
more harmonious arrangements in dress, furniture, and 
physical surroundings, than mankind now enjoys. 



403 

Of Music — Noise — Words and Tones. 

To avoid inflicting on our readers the recitation of mathe- 
matical principles in definino- the difference between noise 
and music, and yet to account lor their effects on the 
human system, we lay down a brief summary of axiomatic 
ideas in the following propositions. Sound is an impulse 
communicated from one body to another and transmitted 
to the ear through waves or vibrations in the air, caused 
by the original impulse. Many definitions have been ren- 
dered to show the difference produced upon the ear by 
noise and music, but we may say in brief that, when the 
waves of air set in motion by an original impulse are 
unequal in length, one wave being short and angular, 
another long and scarcely curved, and the whole mass of 
vibratory element is moved in unequal undulations, the 
result to the ear is noise. 

When the impulse given comnmnicates to the air a per- 
fectly regular series of undulations, each wave assuming 
the same curve and length, the result on the ear is music. 
The effect of these different motions on the mind, need 
not be discussed here. To all civilized nations, and, with 
a few rare exceptions to every individual, the difference in 
effect is analogous to pain and pleasure ; for, although there 
are some few individuals who do not know noise from 
music, as a general rule the appreciation of the difference 
between these two varieties of sound, and their effects 
upon the taste of communities, forms a good gauge of 
national civilization. 

The lower a people may be sunk in the scale of barbar- 
ism, the greater is their predilection for noise and general 
insensibility to music ; whilst the higher the status of civ- 
ilization ranges, the greater is the perfection to which the 
cultivation of music attains. 

It has been shown in the magical history of nations, 



404 

that isounds are amongst the most potential means of ex- 
citing the ecstatic afflatus. The effects of sound are both 
physical and mental. 

It is of course generally understood that concussions 
violent enough to create loud sounds — such as thunder, 
explosions, the firing of artillery, heavy blows, etc., etc. — 
will not only cause powerful vibrations in all surrounding 
objects, but frequently break, displace, or even totally de- 
stroy them. Witness the effect on houses shattered by 
explosions transpiring at considerable distances, windows 
broken, and furniture thrown down by the firing of artil- 
lery, or other concussive disturbances of the atmosphere. 
Similar vibrations may be felt, though in a far less degree, 
by the sound of a powerful organ, or a mass of wind in- 
struments. 

If such effects can operate on the comparatively unyield- 
ing tissues of inanimate substances, may we not reasonably 
expect that analogous motions must be transpiring within 
our own highly strung and vibratory organisms 1 Is it not 
certain in fact, that the elastic fibres of the human sys- 
tem — especially the delicate medullary tissues of the nerves 
— must quiver and respond to every tone that vibrates 
through the air, whether it be soft or loud, musical or simply 
noisy 1 The correspondential effects on the mind cannot 
be questioned, and it is doubtless from the combination of 
mental and physical influences that we see how distracting 
clamors, especially if long continued, will induce catalepsy, 
convulsion, spasm, or even frenzy. 

The effects of music, on the contrary, are delightful and 
exalting. To susceptible and highly cultivated natures, 
music is capable of awakening every emotion of the human 
soul, from the most rapt devotion to the wildest exhilara- 
tion, from the most passionate grief to the excess of mirth- 
fulness. 



405 

Music pierces, penetrates, thrills, never shocks. It 
plays along the fibres of the nerves, quickens the pulse, 
stimulates the circulation, exalts the mind, alters even the 
molecular arrangement of the physical atoms, and partly 
by the harmonious order into which it resolves the layers of 
atmosphere, partly by its entrancing effects upon the soul, 
it fills the listener with a divine magnetism, and, for the 
time being, translates him into a superior condition. 

The Rosicrucians' theory of music is that — 

" The whole world is a musical instrument, a chromatic, sensible instrument; 
life a chromatic and diatonic scale of musical tones. The axis or pole of the ce- 
lestial world is intersected by the spiritual sun, or centre of sentient being, and 
from thence stream forth rays of light, which, divided, form color, which, by mo- 
tion, give oflE" tones of music, filling the universe with celestial sound. Everyman 
has a spark or microcosmic sun in his own being, and thus microcosmieally dif- 
fuses rays of light, and tones, broken by the incoherencies of matter 'tis true, but 
still in essence, musical tones. Earthly music is the faintest tradition of the 
angelic state. It remains in the mind of man as the dream of a lost paradise. 

'• Music is yet master of man's emotions, and therefore of man. Heavenly 
music is produced from impact upon the paths of planets, which stand as chords 
or strings to the rays of the sun, hence light and heat, travelling between solar 
centres and circumferences, waken tones, notes, chords, the sum of which is 
ethereal music." 

"Thus is earthly music a relic, a dream, a memory of heaven, an efflux from the 
motion of planetary bodies, a celestial speech, whose dim echoes are heard and 
imitated on earth, and thus are light and tone, colors and music, inextricably 
combined by one producing cause." 

If the eyes of mortals could be opened to behold the 
conditions of the atmosphere during the yells, shrieks and 
cries of a party of howling dervishes, the beating of " tom- 
toms " (drums), or crashing cymbals in the mantic rites of 
a party of Siberian Schamans, Lapps, or Thibetian Lamas, 
they would see the air tossed and torn into angular curves, 
jagged prominences, literally driven about into crooked 
turns and sharp corners. This is no exaggeration, no 
mere flight of a mystic's fancy. If we cannot see it, the 
science of acoustics assures us it must be so, and this ac- 
counts for the wild and mantic character of barbaric spirit- 



406 

ism, induced, as it so often is, by noise. On the other 
hand, the same clairvoyant vision would behold the atmos- 
phere vibrating to fine music, full of regular undulating 
lines, every curve, swell and depression equal throughout 
the whole length of the waves, and though the lines might 
vary, each would bear such harmonious and graceful rela- 
tions to the other, that the whole atmosphere would appear 
as an exquisite landscape ; blended lights and shadows 
wonderfully graduated into an ocean of billowy air, where 
not a single wave presented an angular, inharmonious, or 
irregular curve. And these delightfully organized strata 
of atmospheres impinge upon the physical forms of the 
listeners, penetrate the very marrow in the bone, and rear- 
range the very structure of every fibre in the system. 
Can the reader now understand the mysteries of snake- 
charming by the sweet and monotonous effect of certain 
musical instruments I — Why, moreover, nearly every beast 
and bird partakes of the spell which music imparts 7 

We could fill a volume with narratives of the potent ef- 
fects of music upon the animal kingdom, and the variety of 
those effects upon different creatures, under the influence 
of different tones. The reader too, may understand why 
the distracting clamors of the battle-field, the bombard- 
ment of a city, the dances and whoops of the red Indians, 
the shouts and howls of Dervishes, and other ecstatics of low 
grades, summon from the crypts of the earth embryotic 
Elementaries, and fire the brains of listening mortals with 
madness or ecstasy. The spells of enchantment, fascination, 
delight, health, and harmony, that sweet music produces, 
no language can describe ; but our readers need question 
no more its uses in sacred services, solemn invocations, 
spirit circles, or any scenes where it is desirable to lift a 
mortal up to heaven, and draw an angel down. 



407 

Of Stones, Herbs, Flowers, Fumigations, Crystals, 
Spells, Amulets, and Talismans. 

Stones of everj kind emit those magnetic rays, wtiicli 
measurably serve to entrance those who gaze steadily upon 
their polished surfaces, but plants are all aromal, and give 
off' either in perfume, or essence, the finest particles of their 
life at every instant that they subsist. When pressed, or 
crushed, this aroma is more readily liberated, and when 
the juice of the plant is extracted and drank, its quality 
enters with still more potency into the system. 

Some of the virtues of drugs and minerals are to be found 
in the vegetable kingdom, but the possibility of extracting 
from both departments of nature narcotics and stimulants, 
and the universal use to which they have been applied in the 
practice of ancient magic, has already been fully shown. 
It is also well known that the Asiatics and Orientals of the 
present day, together with a larger number of Europeans 
than is generally supposed, resort to the use of hasheesh, 
opium, soma drink, and other pernicious narcotics, as tem- 
porary stimulants, or to induce ecstasy and the trance con- 
dition. The mediasval mystics, and even the poor ignorant 
beings accused of witchcraft, resorted still more frequently 
to unguents and fumigations. The latter were invariably 
used in all magical rites, they being deemed efficacious in 
gratifying the spirits summoned, also in preparing the 
atmosphere for their demonstrations no less than in ex- 
erting an intluence upon the invocants, by stupefying or 
stimulating the senses. 

In the Magical elements of Peter d'Abano, the proper 
fumigations for different days and seasons are fully set forth ; 
but, as a general rule, magical rites are best promoted by 
the burning of fragrant herbs, aromatic spices, ambergris, 
Irankincense, fine incense, etc., etc. 

To those who are curious to know the composition ol' 



408 

the famous " Witch Salve," or unguent, with which it was 
supposed — in the middle ages — those who designed to attend 
the '' Witches' Sabbaths," must anoint their bodies in order 
to facilitate their transport through the air on '^ broom- 
stick " steeds, " seive " chariots or more properly speaking, 
on the tvings of imagination distorted hj the use of powerful 
narcotics^ we may give on the authority of Grimm, Horst, 
Van Helmont, and others, the following list of medica- 
ments : 

The deadly nightshade, the napellas, fox glove, betony 
root, sweet fern, ground ivy, origanum, toad stool and 
fungi of various kinds pounded up ; mandrake, gall apple, 
savin, vervain, sorrel and fennel seeds. These and other 
herbs of a narcotic, or deadly character, were bruised and 
pressed into unguents, or distilled into drinks with all man- 
ner of formidable rites, spells and incantations. 

Sticks and staffs were to be made from the hazel tree, 
and fern seed was always carried around the person. A 
favorite nostrum of the witches by way of food, was boiled 
chestnuts and sorrel ; also, they used ointments made from 
the oil of hemlock, aconite, henbane, and four other herbs 
selected from the above choice repertoire. 

As to the spells, charms and talismans most popular in 
the processes of Witchcraft, our pen would fail even to 
catalogue their number, much less to attempt a description 
ot their absurd and meaningless character. 

We may mention one custom very generally adopted 
and supposed to be peculiarly effective in working harm to 
distant persons. This was done by constructing an image, 
as nearly resembling the person of the victim as possible. 
It was assumed that, as this image was slowly roasted be- 
fore a fire, or pierced with pins, knives or other sharp instru- 
ments, corresponding pains and sicknesses would be induced 
in the subject of the fiendish rite, and even death could 
be thus procured. 



409 

To injure the fields, crops or cattle of an enemy, dust 
grains or sharp instruments were cast into the air, accom- 
panied by muttered curses and incantations. Sometimes 
these foul performers buried insects, toads, fruit or other 
objects for the purposes of evil enchantment ; but in what- 
ever rites they were employed, they never failed to recite 
spells or mutter curses, the variety of which would fill a 
library, but their potency as methods of projecting their 
psychological intention on their victims may easily be under- 
stood. 

At this point our readers will exclaim, " Do you then 
attribute potency to the will of a poor old half-crazed be- 
ing who mutters spells over a cauldron of stewed toads, or 
fricassied lizards ? Can the will of such living mummies 
hurt cattle, blight corn-fields, or sap the life juices of good 
and true men removed from these scenes of diablerie by 
great distances '?" 

To this we answer assuredly in the affirmative. It mat- 
ters not whether the potency proceed from male or female, 
old or young, rich or poor. 

The bad alone will attempt such wickedness, but the 
true potency is will, and should we deny the possibilities 
of its exercise simply to gratify the prejudices of those 
who have made no study of psychological powers, we 
should falsify a vast mass of historical testimony, the 
authoritative experience and opinion of all ages, and the 
life-long personal testimony of the Author's own senses, 
which have borne witness to thousands of instances wherein 
the will operated upon individuals removed by long dis- 
tances from the source of the infiuence. 

Save and except the physical and direct effects produced 
upon the system by unguents, drugs, herbs, sounds, and 
vapors, all the force of Witchcraft lay in the Will, which 
hy mere superstitious faith in the idle rites performed, be- 



410 



came projected with irresistible power upon the victim 
against whom it was directed. 

We have already intimated that mischievous Elementa- 
ries who have not yet risen into the spheres of good, are 
ever ready to respond to the summons of natures similar 
to their own, yet higher in the scale of creation than 
themselves. We repeat that these beings are potent in 
the particular realm to which they belong, and can help 
wicked mortals in wicked purposes. Remember too the 
universal laws of sympathy that bind up all nature, ani- 
mate and inanimate, into one vast chain of interdependen- 
cies, and then cease to wonder why the lower creatures 
can receive ban or blessing from their sovereign ruler man. 



MACBOcosMos. / \ D ragoris head . 




Dra-gon's tail 



MICROCOSMOS. 



Mnn, the Microcosm of the Uttiverse, 

We have already dwelt at great length on the connection 
between the planetary system and man. The profoundest 
depths of occult philosophy derive their basis from this 
correspondence. The Ancient Mysteries, the Ancient and 
Modern Free Masons, the best philosophers of Greece and 
Germany, the Cabalists, and in a word, the Metaphysicians 
of all ages, teach that man is the Microcosm of being, as 
God, Angels, and the upper world, form the Macrocosm. 
The poorest of all literature, the penny almanack, cele- 



411 

brates this wonderful correspondence in its zodiacal signs 
marked in their several relations to the human body. As 
an illustration of this idea, take the following few lines of 
Rosicrucian doctrine explanatory of the sketch given on 
the preceding page. 

"The Rosicrnciau Cabala teaches that the three great worlds above, namely — the 
Bnipyrfeum, ^therajum, aud Elementary regions have their copies iu the three 
points of the body of man ; that his head answers to the first, his breast or heart 
to the second, and his ventral regions to the third. In the head rests the intellect 
or the magnetism of the assenting judgment ; in his heart is the conscience or 
emotional faculty, in the umbilical regions reside the animal and sensuous facul- 
ties.'' " Thus man bears in his body the picture of the Triune. Reason 

is the head, feeling the breast, and the mechanical means of reason and feeling is 

tlie epigastric centre." " The invisible magnetic geometrical latitudes of 

these tbree vital points, forms the triune microcosm which is a copy of the macro- 
cosm or Supreme Archetype of the Heavens." 

We only recall in these passages the comprehensive idea 
of an universal sympathy in nature which compels the re- 
echo of heavenly sounds throughout the spaces of earth ; — 
which connects the scenes, events, and destinies played out 
upon the stage of earth, with the grander dramas of eter- 
nity performed by blazing suns, and flashing comets — which 
places everything in this world in sympathetic subjection 
to man, every human being in sympathetic relations one to 
the other, and all to God and Angels. 

In the use of spells, charms, amulets, consecrated names 
and wordsi can w^e assign virtue to such objects 1 No more 
than did Cornelius Agrippa in the many passages of pro- 
test he wrote against this idea, one of which we have 
quoted. Some magnetic virtues, some narcotic essences, 
and some sublunary as well as Astral influences, inhere in 
every plant that grows, on every stone beneath our feet ; 
yet we tread on Cabalistic stones, pluck Cabalistic plants, 
aye, and make use of Cabalistic words every day, and — 
nothing comes of it ! 

Our poor little tortured school children painfully spell 
out the awful name of Jehovah^ and many another unpro- 



412 

noiincable and -'incommunicable name," day by day, and yet 
the earth quakes not — rocks do not rend apart, or demons 
seize upon and strangle out of life the unconscious little 
magicians, after the fashion in which Cornelius Agrippa's 
rash student was said to have perished. Solomon's Seal 
and the Crux Ansata face us in masonic signs, patentees' 
trade-marks, and the humblest domestic implements every 
hour, and yet no white-robed " splendors" from the Empy- 
rean heights of their dwelling places, flash before our au- 
dacious eyes in majestic rebuke of our impiety. It is in 
the manner of using the fiery soul spirit put into the 
witches' broth, the thrice distilled dew of hatred with which 
the puppets are lubricated, the strong passion of supplica- 
tion addressed to the spirits of evil, that evil is wrought 
upon enemies. 

That planets and planetary spirits rule over hours, 
days, months, and years, that the scheme of life works be- 
neath their influence, and stiapes our destiny according to 
fixed laws, is just as certain as that the bloom of the flowers 
is transmitted from soil and seed by the chemistry of the 
sunbeam, while the same great alchemist converts the slime 
of the stagnant pond into the supreme purity and fragrance 
of the lily. But all things in heaven, and all things above 
the grade of man, work together for good, and even when 
sorrow and misfortune befall us, good will come of it if we 
place ourselves in harmony with heaven by good in our 
own lives and purposes. 

Ban, cursing, evil wishes, evil deeds, are in direct an- 
tagonism to God and heaven, angels, and all that is above 
us. By their revulsive action we precipitate ourselves out 
of the sphere of good, turn our backs on heaven, throw off 
the protection of angels, and hurl ourselves down, down 
into the abysses of rudimental being, into the hands of evil, 
cruel, remorseless existences, who are all the stronger be- 



413 



cause they are of the earth sphere earthy, nearer to man 
in his evil and wickedness than he is to any beings above 
him, and prompt to perform any mischief that is within 
the limits of their narrow yet powerful domain of being. 
Yet it will be urged, " all women called witches were not 
evil in design, yet, like Jane Brooks, they may be power- 
ful as unconscious magnetizers ; neither is all magic black 
magic, or evil in intent, and injurious in effect." That is 
true ; but as the strength of will tends downward, its 
potency is increased by the communion of low, undevel- 
oped human spirits, and the aid of Elementaries. 

Bright planetary spirits, and good, wise angel friends^ 
always counsel submission to the will of God, and recom- 




FJontiny a WitcJi. 

mend the achievement of spiritual power and spiritual 
knowledge, principally as a means of elevating the soul, 
giving it new powers for good, and new attributes of bless- 
ing. In communion with those bright beings, it will ever 
be found that their power and their will is not only potent 
for good, but more potent than that of man's. Human 
will then can only be exercised in the choice of the soul 
between lower and higher existences, on the forces of 
nature, relations with our fellow man, and over beings 
lower than earth. 



414 

When we operate with these lower existences, we should 
endeavor to rule them for good. When with nature, to 
wrest her secrets from her, only to use again for good, and 
with our fellow men for the same aim. Then will God 
and angels, heaven and all the heavenly host be with us, 
and magic in that spirit becomes man's triumph over 
matter, and the exaltation of his soul to the sphere of 
Godhead. 



SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION XXI. 

The Magic Mirror^ Us co^nposition by CaJiagnet — Commu- 
nication froTri a Planetary Spirit — Formuloe of Nostra- 
datnus — Call and discliargefor Spirits of tlie Crystal or 
Mirror. 

The following mode of preparing and using a Magic 
Mirror, is recommended by Alphonse Cahagnet^ author of 
the Celestial Telegraphy and, as the methods prescribed are 
simple, and the results obtained are generally efficacious, 
they are submitted to the reader in the words of Cahagnet 
himself : 

Magic Mirror. 

" I PROMISED not to reserve to myself anything 1 had 
learned from spirits ; I will keep my word by giving the 
secret of the magic mirror, revealed to me by the Spirit 
of Swedenborg, who himself, possessed one, and of which 
I have already spoken. I made two in the way recom- 
mended to me, one of which I presented to my friend M. 
Uenard, who after several experiments, gave a favorable 
report of it ; mine was equally good. This is how we should 
go to work : Procure a piece of glass as fine as possible, cut 
it the required size, place it over a slow fire, at the same 
time dissolving some very fine black lead in a small quantity 



415 

of pure oil to give it the consistence of a liquid pomade, 
which may easily be spread over the glass when well diluted. 

" The glass being hot, incline it on both sides, in order 
that the mixture may spread of itself all over alike ; then, 
the glass being placed on something quite straight and 
tiat, let the mixture dry without disturbing it ; in a few 
days it will become as hard as pewter, presenting a very 
fine dark polish ; put your glass in a frame, and after well 
wiping its surface, hang it up on a wall, as you would a 
looking-glass, but always in a false light. Place the per- 
son who desires to see a spirit, or- a scene before this mir- 
ror, station yourself behind him, fixing your eyes steadily 
on the hinder part of the brain, and summon the spirit in 
a loud voice in the name of God, in a manner imposing to 
the individual looking in the mirror. 

" It may be naturally supposed that this kind of exper- 
iment requires certain conditions, the first of which is to 

Shew Stone of Dr. Dee. 




Ji'roin, flie ori(/hi(il hi the Uritiuli JIiisckhi. 

find an individual endowed with this kind of vision. Noth- 
ing is general in psychological facts. There was much 
talk at one time of the magic mirror of Dr. Dee, which 
was sold, in 1842, among the curiosities in the possession 
of Horace Walpole, at Strawberry Hill, for the enormous 
sum of three hundred and twenty-six francs. It was sim- 
ply a bit of sea-coal, perfectly polished, cut in a circular 
form, with a handle. This curiosity formerly figured in 
the cabinet of the Earl of Peterborough. In the catalogue 



416 



it was thus described : ' A black stone, by means of which 
Doctor Dee evoked spirits.' It passed from the hands of 
the earl into those of Lady Elizabeth Germaine, then be- 
came the property of John, last duke of Argyll, whose 
grandson. Lord Campbell, presented it to Walpole. The 
author of the ' Theatrmn Chemicum,' Elias Ashmole, 
speaks of the same mirror in the following terms : 

" ' By the aid of this magic stone, we can see whatever 
persons we desire, no matter in what part of the world they 
be, and were they hidden in the most retired apartments, 
or even in the caverns in the bowels of the earth.' John 




Dr. Dee— from a rare jivUtt. 

Dee, born in London, in 1527, was the son of a wine-mer- 
chant ; he studied the sciences with success, and devoted 
himself, at an early period, to judicial astrology ; Queen 
Elizabeth took him under her protection ; he composed 
several useful works, employed much of his time in the 
science of magic, conjured spirits, made predictions, and 
beheld the invisible ; when he had discovered his mirror 
he retm^ned thanksgivings to God. He was occupied during' 
his whole life in the search for the philosopher's stone, and 
died in London at the age of eighty-four, in a state of ab- 
ject poverty. 

" The Count de Laborde brought us a somewhat similar 
secret from Egypt. The Baron Dupotet communicated a 
like one to his subscribers, in his Journal de Magnetismc ; one 



417 

is much more simplified than the other, and succeeds 
equally as well. M. de Laborde evokes ; makes use of per- 
fumes and stands in need of the co-operation of spirits. M. 
Dupotet seems only to employ the magnetism of thought. 
Cagliostro also employed a magnetism but little suspected, 
by placing one hand on the head of his pupils. The Sor- 
cerers of our country places proceed in like manner, with 
the first mirror met with, imploring the assistance of the 
spirits that facilitate such experiments. 

" M. de Laborde makes use of a brilliant ink which he 
puts in the hollow of the looker's hand, and stimulates his 
nervous system by perfumes. M. Dupotet makes use of a 
piece of coal with which he describes a circle on the floor 
with the intention of making perceptible to the person 
operated upon, such picture as the latter desires ; he 
keeps the subject inclined for this experiment by thought. 
Sorcerers have their reputation, which is of great assist- 
ance to them. Certain prepossessions against such or such 
a person suspected of theft or aught else, their imposing 
air, their supplication to spirits without knowing positively 
the meaning of what they say, this suffices, and they 
operate ! 

" Leon, of whom I have spoken, followed in their steps. 
Prayer, faith, and a disposition of the visual organs facili- 
tated his experiments. Cagliostro, preceded by his repu- 
tation as an incomprehensible man, was often successful in 
consequence of the tact he displayed in selecting his 
pupils, the occult magnetism he employed, etc. ; but if I 
ask Messrs. .de Laborde, Dupotet, Cagliostro, the sorcerers, 
Leon and others, whether they themselves saw in their mir- 
rors or reflecting body, they ivill reply no ; therefore there 
must be a disposition for this kind of experiment ; we must 
be influenced by an imposing display, an occult magnetism, 
or the aid of invocations and perfumes. Wherefore, m 



418 

order to profit by my mirror, I would advise the ceremony 
to be performed with a certain dignity, and to have re- 
course only to what may acton the imagination or nerves, 
as much by a normal or spiritual magnetism as by the 
assistance of perfumes.. All those that bear or shed a 
sweet, pleasant smell, are suitable for the good spirits ; 
such as incense, musk, gum-lac, etc. ; and for evil spirits, 
the seeds of henbane, hemp, belladonna, anise, or corian- 
der, etc. Each seeks his own atmosphere, or one akin to 
it ; but, above all, shun the assistance of evil spirits. Let 
the spirit of justice, discretion, humanity, predominate in 
you ; or otherwise, woe betide you ! 

'' It will not, perhaps, be comprehended why I should 
recommend shunning the invocation of evil spirits, and yet 
make known the perfumes they delight in. I presume 
that I shall be thought sufficiently consistent to speak here 
only of the apparitions we desire to obtain, on the score 
of thefts, or other crimes, committed to your prejudice. 
It is the spirits of such culprits who will obey your com- 
mand to present themselves, and seek the nauseous smell 
of these perfumes. You have nothing to fear from them, 
since, on the contrary, they have everything to fear from 
you. What I recommend you to avoid, when demanding 
apparitions of those you desire to see is pronouncing- 
words, the meaning of which is unknown to you, that 
invite baneful spirits to your assistance. This is true 
Magic." .... 

When M. Cahagnet informs his readers that the distin- 
guished operators whose experiences he cites do not them- 
selves see aught in their mirrors, he omits to add that the 
assistance of one fredisfosed to magnetic seership is essential, 
in fact a magnetized subject is necessary to the success of 
these methods, unless the operator is himself a Medium or 
Seer. It will be asked by the intelligent reader if a Me- 



419 

dium or Seer is essential to the success of experiments by 
the mirror or crystal, why may not the said Medium or 
Seer behold in vision, and without the aid of the instru- 
ments, all he desires 1 To this we answer the magnet- 
ism of the operator, the psychological influence of the 
invocation and the fixidity of the gaze riveted upon the 
shining surface of the mirror are aids to lucidity — though 
not its primal source — but our opinions on the subject of 
Magic and natural mediumship have already been given 
in detail and we only add accounts of the methods recom- 
mended and practiced by celebrated modern Experts to 
supplement our views of ancient — with modern magic. 
For this purpose we subjoin the following communication 
given to a successful Adept of the present generation by a 
Planetary spirit — the guardian of his mirror — when ques- 
tioned concerning the best method of divination, also of 
receiving communications from spirits. The words ap- 
peared on the mirror inscribed therein by the spirit, and 
were read off by the Adept. 

" The best and most ancient method of divination was by the Crystal, or Urim 
and Tlinmmim. 

"Its origin was divine, and the inspiration, visions and communications received 
through this source, when man was pure and holy, were free from all human 
agency, wholl^^ diviue. The use of the crystal in modern times is almost as potent 
as the Urini and Thummim of the Jews, and provided it is in the hands of one 
gifted with clear sight, its revelations are infallible. 

'• Spirits do not actually appear in the crystal, but the seer is magnetically as- 
sisted to look through its pellucid depths into the spirit world. In this way he 
or she is brought in such near contact with spirits that they can readily converse 
with mortals." 

Another planetary spirit, questioned on jthe same sub- 
ject, said : 

" Whenever guardian spirits, or augels of the higher orders move in the spirit 
world, the air that surrounds them is cleared of everything that is, in any degree, 
more gross than themselves. 

" Thus if an atmospheric spirit meet a more heavenly spirit, the atmospheric 
spirit yields to the pressure of the air that surrounds the other, and retires to let 
him pass. In this way spirits visit the atmosphere, and the spheres lower than 



420 



their own, also the earth, without once- coming in contact with ihose below him, 
unless he wishes to do so. Thus, too, when he is ' called ' to converse with 
human beings, the Invocant's thoughts, or rather will, immediately reach him, and 
he appears separating and sending before him all influences less angelical than his 
own. 

"Guardian spirits and angels of high degree are only seen in the TJrim and 
Thummim, the crystal and the mirror, the other modes of divining, by vessels of 
water, by circle work, by shades, by bands, or black tiuids, are only available for 
seeing deceased persons, atmospheric spirits, wandering spirits, evil or undevel- 
oped spirits." 

Formula of Nostrada.mus for Crystal Seeing. 



'M 



LJ 




Nostradnnius. 



The following method, especially commendable for its 
simplicity, has been frequently employed with success in 
magical evocations of Planetary or other spirits by Adepts 
in the nineteenth century. 

It is selected from hundreds of others in the author's 
possession, chiefly from the perspicuity of its wording, and 
the absence of mystic assumptions. 



. \ . 421 

Its composition is attributed to the celebrated Astrologer 
and Crystal Seer, Nostradamus. 

Directions for Crystal Seeing. 

" Having procured a good, clear stone, one that no spirit 
has been called into before, the Seer must determine to use 
it for no bad purpose. I do not say determine to use it 
only for good purposes, because many frivolous and trilling 
things might occur that would induce one to use it for the 
knowledge of things appertaining to the world ; but, hav- 
ing determined to use it for no bad or unholy pur^DOse, he 
should dedicate it first with a fervent prayer to God. 

" Do not make use of a mediator, but firmly, yet humbly, 
trust that God will put you in possession of a Guardian 
Spirit that will show you the visions you may thereafter 
wish." 

'' Having done this, inspect the Crystal, and before ask- 
ing to see any vision, ask first to see the name of your 
Guardian Spirit ; having done this, ask to see him ; when 
he appears, ask him to give you any advice he may deem 
fit in using it. Ask him to name the days and hours that 
he will appear, and also those on which you may call other 
spirits. Ask him to become the Guardian Spirit of your 
Crystal ; to prevent any evil spirit from appearing, and 
to give you timely notice of anything about to happen to 
you that you may prevent it, or that he may prevent it 
for you." 

" This done, you must discharge him. He should not 
be kept more than half an hour at the first meeting." 

"When you invoke him the next time, exorcise with a 
strong and determined will three times before you ask 
him any questions ; if at those three times he does not 
vanish, you may perfectly rely upon him," 

•'After the first time you may keep him as long as it 



422 

may suit yours and his convenience ; if he wishes to leave, 
he can do so without a discharge ; hut be careful that you 
always use a discharge after having finished of a night." 

"When invoking any Atmospheric Spirit, or a vSpirit of 
any inferior degree, such as those of living as well as dead 
people, always use the term ' if convenient and agree- 
able,' etc. ; or, 'at your pleasure ;' but more particularly 
of a living person ; to your Guardian Spirit, or a Spirit of 
a High order, it is not necessary." 

" But above all do not use it in any way, or make it 
directly or indirectly an object for the gaining of money. 
It may appear to go on smoothly for a few times. You 
may have the information and the visions you wish for ^ 
but in the end the consequences are lamentable, and they - 
come sooner or later." 

" When you have got used to a Crystal, feel confidence 
in it, and assured in many ways of the Truth of it, then 
you can use a Mirror, which is by a very great deal the 
best." 

" The Mirror is to be used the same as a Crystal, but 
from seeing visions so large and life-like, and from the size 
of the aperture which is made by that into the spiritual 
world, it enables you to come more closely in contact with 
the spirits you address. 

" Of all modes of divining this is the easiest and the best, 
the information is given slowly at first, then gradually more 
and more, until you reach the grand height of all human 
knowledge upon spiritual matters, until you know as much 
as the human mind can in any way comprehend of what 
passes beyond its own World." 

The Call. 

'' In the name of the Almighty God, in whom we live 
and move and have our being, I humbly beseech the Guar- 
dian Spirit of this Mirror or Crystal to appear. 



423 

" When appeared you can ask your questions, and obtain 
instructions as to Calling — asking when he will allow you 
to call him again, and fix his time for appearing." 

For a Vision. 

" In the name, etc., I humbly beseech the Spirit of this 
Mirror to favor me with a Vision that will interest or in- 
struct us, (or favor us with a Vision of such and such a 
place or event, etc.") 

To SEE A Person. 

" In the name, etc. Then say, R. B. be pleased to ap- 
pear in this Mirror if convenient and agreeable. ( Never 
fail in this.") 

Exorcism. 

" In the name of the Almighty God, in whom we live 
and move and have our being, I dismiss the Spirit now 
visible in this Mirror if he is not" — " or if he is not a good 
and truthful Spirit." 

" This must be said very intently and strongly three 
times, with the finger upon the Crystal, whenever a Spirit 
is from any cause suspected." 

Discharge. 

" In the name, etc., I dismiss from this Mirror all Spirits 
that may have appeared therein, and the peace of God be 
between them and us forever.'' 

" This must be said three times upon closing, even if 
Spirits are not seen, as they may have entered, and its 
neglect will soon spoil the Mirror or Crystal." 



424 



SECTION XXII 

Magnetism — Psycliology — Clairooyance, tlieir connection 
with Ancient Magic — the great modern Triad — Paracel- 
sus — Swedenborg and Mesmer — Billot — Deleuze — Ga- 
hagnet, etc., etc. 

Those who would write the true history of Magnetism 
must seek materials in that of magic, for the one is just as 
surely a record of the other, as the principles of Astrology 
are derived from the science of Astronomy. 

We have written to little purpose if we have failed to 
impress our readers with the fact that the relations be- 
tween the worlds of invisible and visible being, are only 
made known through the occult forces which enable the 
visible to penetrate into the realms of the invisible — also 
that the means by which Spirits, Angels, and even Tute- 
lary Deities, communicate with mortals, depend wholly 
upon these same occult forces. Whether we call this all- 
pervading motor of being, " divine fire, astral light, elec- 
tricity, magnetism, or life," it is, as we have before shown, 
the eternal, indestructible, universal and infinite element 
of Force. Magic, Deific relations. Angelic ministry, and 
spirit communion, are but applications of this force oper- 
ating upon man, and the visible Universe is only a magni- 
ficent chess-board, on which Force is playing the eternal 
game of creation and destruction, with Suns and Satellites 
for its chess-men. Whilst it becomes evident that the 
ancients obtained a wide control over this stupendous 
motor power by long study and painful initiations, the 
men of the middle ages in a great measure lost the 



425 

clue to its guidance, and the apparitional demonstra- 
tions of its eternal activity, revealed by glimpses from 
the worlds of invisible being, only served to startle them 
into superstitious terror, without instructing them concern- 
ing the potential agency at work. 

Slowly bat surely the veil of mystery is again lifting, 
and again men see the Cyclops at work forging hemi- 
spheres and earths. Angels and Men, out of matter and 
spirit by the motor power of this same life-lightning. The 
revelation now so slowly yet surely stealing in upon hu- 
man consciousness, has not been heralded by the roar of 
the tempest, the boom of the thunder, or the throes of the 
quaking earth. 

Like the still small voice that spoke to the Prophet Elijah 
ivhen the Lord passed hjj — it has come in the low whispers 
of two new sciences — the science of life or magnetism, 
and the science of soul or psychology. Only the very 
first elements of these two magical revelations have as yet 
dawned upon our age, but they have shown us enough to 
be assured that when they are fully understood and scien- 
tifically applied, they will afford a clue to all the mysteries 
of the past, and enable man to achieve by natural law, 
all those phenomenal demonstrations which in ancient times 
were termed miraculous. 

To trace the advent of these phases of spiritual science, 
it will be necessary to recall the bold claims of Paracelsus 
for the almost miraculous powers of the magnet, and 
though most of his followers were dreamy and impractical 
mystics, who failed to apply the comprehensive ideas which 
he suggested, they served to keep alive the flame of occult 
fire which he kindled, until the appearance on the scene of 
the noble and illuminated Swedenborg, who presented as 
a Seer of unequalled lucidity, that glorious element of psy- 
chological science, which completely supplemented the 



426 

t 

opinions of Paracelsus concerning magnetism. It remained 
for Anton Mesmer to combine these two supreme soul 
forces into their correlative relations, and demonstrate by 
the practical application of magnetism, the possibility of 
emulating the natural endowments of Seership, through the 
revelations of the magnetic sleep. 

It must not be supposed that we attribute to that illus- 
trious triad of modern philosophers, Paracelsus, Sweden- 
borg, and Mesmer, any new discoveries in nature. 

They only rekindled lights of divine science which ignor- 
ance and superstition had sought to stifle if they could not 
extinguish them. 

Magnetism the life principle and psychology the. soul 
power of the Universe, had been as we have constantly 
alleged, the motors of all magical operations, and the 
knowledge of this fact, and an understanding of how to ap- 
ply these sublime forces, constituted " the wisdom of the 
Ancients," and the arcanum of all their mysteries. But 
the master spirit of antiquity had been slain by the destroy- 
ing demons of time, change, and revolution. The Master'' s 
word was lost^ and for ages the building of the grand Tem- 
ple of Spiritual Science waited for the key-stone necessary 
to complete the arch of the entrance gate. The Alchemists 
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries perceived the exist- 
ence of a " philosopher's stone," but dared not declare that 
it was to be found only in the universal life force of mag- 
netism. The Rosicrucians of two centuries later realized 
the true nature of the " Elixir Vitee" in the imperishable 
quality of Soul essence, but how could they venture to re- 
veal to a scof&ng, yet superstitious age, the stupendous fact 
that this Soul essence could be controlled, imparted, and 
utilized even without the agency of death to liberate it from 
the body 7 It was because Paracelsus bravely and openly 
taught of this philosopher's stone, giving its true name as 



427 

Magnetism, and Swedenborg as fearlessly displayed the 
latent possibilities of spiritual communion and Seership in 
the human Soul, that these noble philosophers stand con- 
fessed as the Fathers of the new Dispensation, 

The position of Mesmer in this great unfoldment is not 
less triumphantly defined, but that the momentous revolu- 
tion he effected in spiritual science may be the more clearly 
understood; we shall proceed to give a brief compendium 
of the theorems by which his methods of practice were 
explained. 

It is from Dr. Justinius Kerner's clear yet reverential 
notices of the life of this inestimable man, so little appre- 
ciated in his own time, so ill understood even yet by the 
cold world upon which he opened up such a realm of spir- 
itual sunshine, that we extract the following items. 

Anton Mesmer first saw the light at Weiler, on the 
Rhine, May the 28d, 1734. As quite a young child, he is 
said to have exhibited a remarkable predilection for run- 
ning water, delighting to follow up the course of streams 
and brooks to their source, and frequently neglecting his 
scholastic duties for the pleasure of hovering on the banks 
of the mighty Rhine, gathering stones, shells, and disport- 
ing, with a strange joy, in the falling rain, the wild wind, 
the howling tempest, and the balmy sunshine. He was 
passionately addicted to the study of nature, and an insatia- 
ble yearning led him to explore her recesses, even at an 
age when his childish mind failed to command language 
for the expression of the great thoughts that possessed 
him. During his initiatory studies for the medical pro- 
fession, he noticed and his associates were accustomed 
to comment on the strange manner in which the blood of 
a patient under the operation of the knife or lancet would 
immediately change the course of its flow as soon as he 
approached. Sometimes, it is said, it would cease instantly, 



428 

and where the flow was sluggish, its increase would be 
immediately promoted by his touch, receding or suspend- 
ing altogether when he withdrew. A thousand petty in- 
cidents, commented on at the time as ' very curious,' but 
subsequently remembered as tokens of his ever-present and 
spontaneous magnetic influence, were constantly occurring 
from his early childhood up to the time when his unerring 
instincts led him into the arcanum of his great discovery. 
How this occurred will be best rendered in the language 
of Kerner, who says: 

" Duiiughis fifteen years' medical practice in Vienna, he came upon his new 
art of healing through observing the origin, the form, and the career of diseases, 
in connection with the great changes in our solar system and the universe ; in 
short, in connection with what he termed Universal Magnetism. He sought for 
this magnetism originally iu electricity and subsequently in mineral magnetism. 
He made use of the magnet for healing at first in 1772, led to this discovery by 
the astronomer, Father Hel ; using the magnet, however, simply as a conductor 
from his own organism through his hands, and by this means brought forth 
remarkable cures. A year subsequently, experience showed him that without 
touching the magnet, through his hands alone, he could operate much more 
powerfully upon the human organism, and thus originated through him the discov- 
ery of Animal Magnetism, which he. developed into a science. 

"It was after this manner that Mesmer reasoned : 'There must exist a power 
which permeates the universe, and binds together all the bodies upon earth, and 
it must be possible for man to bring this influence under his command.' This 
power he first sought for in the magnet ; he pondered upon it with regard to man, 
and immediately applied it to the cure of diseases. The remarkable operations 
which were produced, and the cure of the sick, would, in another investigator, 
have brought him to an end of his experiments. Mesmer, however, went forward. 
Ever accompanied by the idea of the primal power which must permeate the uni- 
verse, and is ever active within it, the thought occurred to him that the influence 
must exist yet more powerfully iu man himself than in the magnet ; since, he 
argued, if the magnet communicates to the iron the same polarity which causes 
itself to be a magnet, an organized body must be able to produce similar conditions 
in another body. He thus perceived that he could not ascribe alone to the mag- 
net which he held in his hands the effects which he had observed produced, since 
he also must in his turn influence the magnet. Upon this he cast aside his mag- 
net, and with his hands alone brought forth similar and unadulterated effects." 

No great discovery has ever yet convulsed the world 
that has not subsequently brought forth its cloud of claim- 
ants to share in its honors. One says : " Why, this is 
nothing new ! I always knew it, and have observed it a 



429 

hundred times," This cry is echoed and re-echoed until 
an hundred, a thousand — aye, half the age, perhaps, insists 
they always knew it was so ; it is nothing netv. Nothing can 
be truer than this in relation to magnetism ; yet, with all 
the wise world's perception of its truth, it required the 
genius of a Mesmer to practicalize, and above all to reduce 
it to scientific theorems. 

Kerner gives some narratives of Mesmer's methods of 
treatment in his earliest stages of magnetic practice, which, 
although very striking, are not sufficiently germain to our 
purpose to admit of quoting here ; we therefore omit them, 
and proceed to present the conclusions they caused the 
narrator to draw from them. He writes thus : 

" He ascertained tha't the principal agent in his cures dwelt witJiin himself, and 
that its power increased by use. JSTevertheless, the idea was never combated by 
Mesmer, that persons upon whom animal magnetism exercises but a slight influ- 
ence, are rendered more susceptible to this influence by the assistance of electri- 
city and galvanism. 

" Seifart remarks that he had observed that Mesmer wore beneath his linen shirt 
aaother of leather lined with silk, and supposes that Mesmer sought by this means 
to prevent the escape of the magnetic fluid. He believes that Mesmer also wore 
natural and artificial magnets about his person, with the intention of strengthen- 
ing the magnetic condition in himself. 

"At all events it is certain that at a later period he employed for the strengthen- 
ing of the magnetic condition, an apparatus, the Baquet, or, as he called it, the 
Magnetic Basin or Paropotlms. This receptacle, as it was originally formed by 
Mesmer, was a large pan or tub, filled with various magnetic substances, such as 
water, sand, stone, glass bottles filled with water, etc. It is a focus within which 
the magnetism finds itself concentrated, and out of which a number of conductors 
proceed; these conductors being bent, somewhat pointed parallel iron wands, the 
one end of each wand being in the tub, whilst the other end could be applied to 
the seat of the disease. This arrangement might be made use of by a number of 
patients seated around the tub. Any suitably-sized receptacle for water — a pond 
or a fountain in a garden — would serve a patient as a baquet so soon as the 
patient made use of an iron wand to conduct the magnetism towards him or her- 
self" 

'•In vain did Mesmer endeavor to convince his medical contemporaries of the 
truth and importance of his discovery ; in vain was his announcement of it to the 
scientific academies. With but a single exception he received no answer from 
them. This exception was the Academy of Berlin, which passed the following 
judgment : — It would in nowise enter upon an inquiry into a matter which rested 
on such entirely unknown foundations. 

"Upon this Mesmer brought all his discoveries into the form of twenty-seven 



430 



aphorisms, which he sent to the scientific academies in the year 1775. These 
aphorisms contain Mesmer's doctrine clearly and briefly expressed, and it is im- 
portant to become acquainted with them, since his ideas are here given in his own 
words : 

' 1. There exists a reciprocal influence between the heavenly bodies, the earth, 
and all living beings. 

'2. A fluid which is spread everywhere, and which is so expanded that it per- 
mits of no vacuum, of a delicacy which can be compared to nothing besides itself, 
and which, through its nature, is enabled to receive movement, to spread and to 
participate in it, is the medium of this influence. 

'3. This reciprocal activity is subject to the operation of mechanical laws, which 
until now were quite unknown. 

' 4. Fi'om this activity spring alternating operations, which may be compared to 
ebb and flow. 

' 5. This ebb and flow are more or less general, more or less complex, according 
to the nature of the origin which has called them forth. 

' 6. Through this active principle, which is far more universal than any other in 
nature, originates a relative activity between the heavenly bodies, the earth, and 
its component parts. 

-»^7. It immediately sets in movement — since it directly enters into the substance 
of the nerves — the properties of matter and of organized bodies, and the alternative 
operations of these active existences. 

'8. In human bodies are discovered properties which correspond with those 
of the magnet. Also various opposite poles maybe distinguished, which can be 
imparted, changed, disturbed, and strengthened. 

'9. The property of the animal body, which renders it susceptible to the influ- 
ence of the heavenly bodies, and to the reciprocal operation of those bodies which 
surround it, verified by the magnet, has induced me to term this property Animal 
Magnetism. 

' 10. The power and operation thus designated as Animal Magnetism can be 
communicated to animate and inanimate bodies ; both, however, are more or less 
susceptible. 

' 11. This power and operation can be increased and propagated through the in- 
strumentality of these bodies. 

' 12. Through experience it is observed that an efflux of matter occurs, the vola- 
tility of which enables it to penetrate all bodies without perceptibly losing any of 
its activity. 

' 13. Its operation extends into the distance without the assistance of an inter- 
mediate body. 

' 14. It can he increased and throimi hack again by means of a mirror, as toell 
as by light. 

' 15. It can be communicated, increased, and spread by means of sound. 

' 16. This magnetic power can be accumulated, increased, and spread. 

' 17. I have observed that animated bodies are not all equally fitted to receive 
this magnetic power. There are also bodies, although comparatively few, which 
possess such opposite qualities that their presence destroys the operation of this 
magnetism in other bodies. 

"^18. This opposing power permeates equally all bodies ; it can also in the same 
manner be communicated, accumulated, and propagated ; it streams back 'from 



431 



the tiurface ot mirrors, and can be spread by means of sound. This is not alone 
occasioned by a deprivation of power, but is caused by an opposing and positive 
power. 

' 19. The natur.al and artificial magnet is equally, with other bodies, susceptible 
to animal magnetism, without, in either case, its operation upon iron or upon the 
needle suifering the slightest change. 

• 20. This system will place in a clearer light the nature of fire, and of light, as 
well as the doctrine of attraction, of ebb and flow, of the magnet, and of elec- 
tricity. 

' 21. It will demonstrate that the magnet and artificial electricity, with regard 
to sicknesses, possess simply qualities possessed in common with other active 
forces afforded by nature ; and that if any useful operation springs from their in- 
strumentality, we have to thank animal magnetism for it. 

• 22. From instances deduced from my firmly established and thoroughly proved 
rules, it will be easily perceived that this principle can immediately cure diseases 
of the nerves. 

"23. Through its assistance the physician receives much light regarding the ap- 
plication of medicaments, whereby he can improve their operation, call forth more 
beneficial crises, and conduct them in such wise as to become master of them. 

' 24. Through communication of my method, I shall, in unfolding a new doe- 
trine of disease, prove the universal use of this active principle. 

' 25. Through this knowledge the physician will be enabled to judge of the 
origin, the progress, and the nature even of the most intricate diseases. He will 
be enabled to prevent the increase of disease, and bring about the cure without 
exposing his patient to dangerous effects or painful cousequeuces, whatever be the 
age, sex, or temperament of the patient. 

'26. Women, during pregnancy and in childbirth receive advantage therefrom. 

• 27. The doctrine will, at length, place the physician in such a position that he 
will be able to judge the degrees of health possessed by any man, and be able to 
protect him from the disease to which he maybe exposed. The artof healing will 
by this means attain to its greatest height of perfection.' 

" Thus deeply convinced of the truth of his doctrine, it was natural that Mesmer 
should feel keenly pained by the misconception and contempt of men, for whom, 
jn other directicms, he entertained esteem. He expresses his bitter sorrow in vari- 
ous of the writings left behind him. 

' This system, which led me to the discovery of animal magnetism,' he writes, 
'was not the fruits of a single day. By degrees, even as the hours of my life ac- 
cumulated, were gathered together in my soul the observations which led to it. 
The coldness with which my earliest promulgated ideas were met filled me with 
astonishment as great as though I had never foreseen such coldness. The learned 
(and physicians especially) laughed over my system, but quite out of place, how- 
ever, for although unsupported by experiment it must have appeared fully as rea- 
sonable as the greater portion of their systems, on which they bestow the grand 
name of principles. 

' This unfavorable reception induced me again to examine my ideas. Instead, 
however, of losing through this, they gained a higher degree of manifestation, 
and in truth everything convinced me that in science, besides the principles alreadj- 
accepted, there must still be others, either neglected or not observed.' " 

As our work is simply an attempt to elucidate philoso- 



432 



phy from facts, we shall pursue the history of Mesmer no 
farther. His followers, some few of whom were indeed 
worthy successors to so great an original, added many val- 
uable experiences to his, but failed to evolve any ideas 
more thoroughly comprehensive than those given in his 
twenty-seven aphorisms. To show why the mine of rich 
treasure opened up by Mesmer has been so slowly and re- 
luctantly transferred to the mint of national currency in 
human practice, we have only to remember the bitter per- 
secutions, cruel ingratitude, and misrepresentation, which 
followed the good and amiable Anton Mesmer through his 
life, and pursued his followers after his decease. 

The narrow conservatism of the age too, and the pitiful 
jealousy of the Medical Faculty, rendered it difficult and 
even dangerous, to conduct magnetic experiments openly in 
Europe within several years of Mesmer's decease. Still 
such experiments were not wanting, and to show their re- 
sults, we give a few excerpts from the correspondence 
between the famous French Magnetists, M. M. Deleuze 
and Billot, from the years 1829 to 1840. By these letters, 
published in two volumes in 1836, it appears that M. Bil- 
lot commenced his experiments in magnetizing as early as 
1789, and that during this space of over forty years, he had 
an opportunity of witnessing facts in clairvoyance, ecstasy, 
spiritual mediumship, and Somnambulism, which at the 
time of their publication transcended the belief of the gen- 
eral mass of readers. On many occasions in the presence 
of entranced subjects, Spirits recognized as having once 
lived on earth in mortal form — would come in bodily pres- 
ence before the eyes of an assembled company, and at re- 
quest, bring flowers, fruits, and objects, removed by distance 
from the scene of the experiments. 

M. Deleuze frankly admits that his experience was 
more limited to those phases of Somnambulism in which 
his subjects submitted to amputations and severe surgical 



433 

operations without experiencing the slightest pain, also 
they could disclose hidden things, find lost property, detect 
crime, predict the future, speak in foreign languages, and 
describe distant places with great eloquence and power. 

In a letter dated July, 1831, M. Billot writing to De- 
leuze, says : 

" I repeat, 1 have seen and known all that is permitted to man. I have seen/'^ 
the stigmata arise on magnetized subjects ;— I have dispelled obsessions of evil 
spirits with a single word. I have seen spirits bring those material objects I told 
you of, and when requested, make them so light that they would float, and. again 
a small boiteaii de bonbons was rendered so heavy, that I failed to move it an inch 
until the power was removed." 

Alfonse Cahagnet, to whose invaluable work, the" Celes- 
tial Telegraph," allusion has already been made — pub- 
lished a series of experiments with a vast number of lucid 
subjects who by virtue of his magnetism became Clairvoy- 
ants. 

At first their lucidity only sufficed to discover the things 
of earth, and trace earthly scenes and persons. As the 
magnetic sleep took deeper hold on their senses however, 
it became apparent that a new world opened up before 
them. 

Without any mental direction from their magnetizers — - 
they one and all persisted in describing the spirits of those 
whom the world deemed dead. They discoursed with 
them, sometimes personated them, gave truthful accounts 
of their lives on earth, and described their appearances so 
accurately that scores of enquiring mourners, attracted by 
the fame of Cahagnet's Lucides, came thither to find their 
dead restored to them. It was as if a gate had suddenly 
been opened into the realms of paradise, and poor suffering 
bereaved humanity might be seen crowding upon each 
other to gaze through those golden portals and discover 
there all they had loved, all they had lost, and as in a mir- 
ror behold the delightful panoramas of being where their 



434 

own tired feet were to find rest when their bodies should 
sleep the last sleep of humanity. 

To those who enjoyed the unspeakable privilege of lis- 
tening to the " Somnambules" of Billot, Deleuze, and Ca- 
hagnet, another and yet more striking feature of unani- 
mous revelation was poured forth. Spirits of those who 
had passed away strong in the faith of Roman Catholicism, 
often priests and dignitaries of that conservative Church, 
addressing staunch and prejudiced believers in the faith 
too, always asserted " there was no creed in Heaven," no 
sectarian worship, no remains of dogmatic faiths. 

They taught that God was a grand Spiritual Sun — life 
on earth a probation ; — the spheres different degrees of 
compensative happiness or states of retributive suffering ; 
— each appropriate to the good or evil deeds done on earth. 
They described the ascending changes open to every soul 
in proportion to its own efforts to improve. 

They all insisted that man was his own judge, incurred 
a penalty or reward for which there was no substitution. 
They taught nothing of Christ, absolutely denied the idea 
of vicarious atonement — and represented man as his own 
Saviour or destroyer. 

They spoke of arts, sciences, and continued activities, as 
if the life beyond was but an extension of the present on a 
greatly improved scale. Descriptions of the radiant 
beauty, supernal happiness, and ecstatic sublimity mani- 
fested by the blest spirits who had risen to the spheres of 
paradise, Heaven, and the glory of Angelic companionship, 
melts the heart, and fills the soul with irresistible yearn- 
ings to lay down life's weary burdens and be at rest with 
them. 

" 0, to be there !" must be the cry of every tired spirit 
who listens to these enchanting pictures of an enchanting 
hereafter ; one too, which so reasonably and harmoniously 



435 

meets the aspirations of that human nature we yet bear 
about with us, which, whilst longing for the unimagin- 
able glories of Heaven, shrinks back appalled from the in- 
comprehensible mysticism of theology. Such were some 
of the original and startling revealments poured forth by 
the French Clairvoyants who, during the first half of this 
century, led in their somnambulic hands whole legions of 
arisen spirits and teaching angels, all evidently builders, 
Hocking into the great workshops of modern spiritual sci- 
ence, to take their places in the erection of the new Church 
of humanity. We cannot close this necessarily brief sum- 
mary, without quoting a few words from that philosophic 
herald of Magnetism's new morning. Baron Dupotet. This 
brave and skillful Scientist says : 

•'jSTo one can conduct magnetic seances with patience and fidelity, without com- 
ing to the conclusion which bursts upon my own mind, namely : that in Maguetism 
I rediscover the Spiritology of the aucieuts. Let the Savant reject the doctrine 
of spiritual apparitions as one of the great errors of the past, the results of the 
Magnetic seance re-affirm them all. They do more. They prove that the healing 
of the sick; the ecstasy of the Saints, all their miraculous works are ours. Is the 
knoiuledge of ancient magic lost? — !oe have all the facts on winch to reconstruct it." 

The learned Magnetist then recites a vast number of 
the phenomena produced through his own subjects and those 
of Puysegur, Seguin, Bertrand, and many others, which 
fully equal in marvel any of the magical histories of past 
ages. 

And these discoveries multiplying in number every day, 
and increasing in marvel as the Adepts became more and 
more accomplished in their art, clustered to their meridian 
point before the year 1840, nearly ten years before the 
outbreak of modern Spiritualism in America, a movement 
from which many date the advent of spiritual revelation 
in this generation. 

As a matter of phenomenal wonder the latter class are 
right in their definition ; but as the glorious triad of Mas- 



436 

ters through whom the lodges of ancient mystery are 
transformed into the temples of modern science, Paracelsus, 
Swedenborg and Mesmer take rank in unapproachable 
honor and unrivalled distinction. To their determined 
spirit of inquiry, to the patience, fidelity and acumen with 
which they conducted their extensive researches, and the 
unparalleled courage with which they dared to assail the 
prejudices of the age in which they lived, the generations 
to come will owe the fact that magnetism and psychology 
have rediscovered the lost art of ancient magic, and trans- 
muted the visionary stone and elixir of mediaeval mystics 
into the pure gold of modern spiritual science. 



437 



SECTION XXIIL 

Spiritualistic Literature — The Harmonial PJiilosophy and 
its Founder — Modern Spiritism, its unvoersality of phe- 
nomena — Specialties of American Spiritism — Proposi- 
tions for renewing its life, purifying its ranks, and 
educating a neio School of the Prophets — Dark and Light 
Circles — Closing Words. 

We have reached that point in our review when we find 
ourselves at the final stage of our journey, standing face 
to face in fact with the last great spiritual dispensation of 
the ages, commonly termed " Modern Spiritualism." 

In touching upon this part of our record the task re- 
solves itself chiefly into the duty of cataloguing the many 
lucid and valuable expositions of the subject which are 
already extant, rendering the least attempt to add to this 
vast collection of special literature, a work of supereroga- 
tion. In England, " The Two Worlds," by Thos. Shorter — 
" From Matter to Spirit," by Mrs. De Morgan, the admir- 
able spiritualistic works of Wra. Howitt, and Mrs. Crowe's 
" Night Side of Nature," offer more food for reflection than 
it would seem the public mind has as yet been able to as- 
similate, whilst hosts of tracts, pamphlets, able magazines 
and newspapers, furnish continual streams of information 
from which no thirsting soul need go away empty. France 
is equally rich in the literature of Spiritism, although the 
general tone of its later writers is deflected to sustain the 
peculiar opinions of that body of believers known as " Re- 
incarnationists." It would be as useless as imperthient to 
cite German literature in support of Spiritualistic doctrines 
or point to its phalanx of immortal writers whose aliirma- 



438 



tions of the Spiritual side of man's nature have never 
failed since the advent of the printing press to this hour. 
Holland in its excellent periodicals, and Russia in its lib- 
eral patronage of spirit media are also contributing their 
quota to the general store-house of occult knowledge. In 
the meantime brave unflinching defenders of these truths, 
writing in Spain from amidst the ghostly shadows of the 
grim old Inquisition, devoted bands of Spiritists writhing 
under the proscriptive ban of Priestcraft in South America, 
scattering forces from the Sandwich Islands, New Zealand, 
the East and West Indies, Australia, California, and indeed 
wherever civilization has a foothold, all contribute to fill up 
the columns of a world-wide Spiritual Almanac, and record 
the ceaseless irruptions of spirit people into this mundane 
world of ours. 

There are many circumstances which combine t< > fix the 
era of this great modern movement at or about the date 
assigned to what has been popularly termed " the Roches- 
ter knockings." Whilst it would be far more difiicult to 
name any period of human history when Spiritism was 
not^ rather than v^hen it commenced to act^ there is much pro- 
priety in assuming that the first systematic efibrt to reduce 
the telegraphic signals made by spirits to a method of 
direct and continuous communication between themselves 
and mortals occurred at Rochester, in the State of New 
York, America, and commenced in the years 1847 and '48. 

The first public exhibition of Spiritual power too, oc- 
curred at this place and time, conducted under the direc- 
tion of Spirits, and terminating in reports of Committees 
elected by the people, alleging a Spiritual cause for the 
disturbances that these public meetings were convened to 
inquire into. In America also, was presented, for the first 
time in history, a petition to the Government of the country, 
signed by many thousands of the most respectable of its 



439 

citizens, praying for a scientific commission to inquire into 
a purely Spiritualistic movement. 

It is from these causes, together with the immense sur- 
faces of country embraced in the American manifestations 
— their power, variety, force and phenomenal wonder, the 
enormous masses of its believers, and the profusion of its 
literature, that mankind seem to have combined, with one 
accord, to yield the palm of all potency, number and influ- 
ence to American Spiritism. 

Before entering upon a final summary of this movement, 
it behooves us to render another reason why we should 
concentrate upon the modern Spiritism of the United States 
the deepest emotions of respect and gratitude which man- 
kind can render to the movers and founders of the great 
spiritual outpouring. 

On American soil was born, and under American skies 
were first poured out, the vaticinations of a Seer, who 
stands second to no prophet, religious teacher, reformer, 
writer, or phenomenal wonder-worker, that the page of 
history has ever borne witness of. That Seer is Andrew 
Jackson Davis. During a brief residence in America 
some few years since, the author, being on a visit to a friend 
in a charming country-seat, found himself made free of a 
noble library of several hundred volumes. In one portion 
of that enchanting study, just where the beams of the 
sinking sun would fall most favorably through the softened 
lustre of the stained-glass windows, stood a rich ormulu 
table, where, in singular contrast to the luxurious objects 
surrounding them, were piled up a large mass of plainly 
bound volumes, most of them large and evidently suffi- 
ciently popular with their possessor, for they bore more con- 
clusive marks of wear than any other of the gorgeously 
bound volumes that the room contained. On opening with 
some curiosity the most ponderous of these books, the eye 



440 



fell upon the following passages somewhere about the 142d 
page: 

" As it was in the beginning, so the vast and boundless ITniverccelum, the great 
sun and centre from which all these worlds, and systems of worlds, emanated, is 
still an exhaustless fountain of chaotic materials and living inherent energy to 
drive into existence billions and millions of billions of suns, with all their ap- 
pendages more than have yet been produced ! For it has eternal motion and con- 
tains the forms that all things subsequently assume ; and it contains laws that are 
displayed in its geometrical and mechanical structure, combinations, laws, forces, 
forms and motions that have produced, and will still produce, an infinitude of sys- 
tems, and systems of systems, whose concentric circles are but an expanse from 
the great germ of all existence, and are incessantly acting and re-acting, chang- 
ing, harmonizing, organizing and etherealizing every particle of chaotic and unde- 
veloped matter that exists in the vortex !" 

Struck with the peculiarity of these strange and high- 
strung words, and their analogy with the opinions that he 
had himself imbibed from the study of the Universe and 
its laws, the author proceeded to turn other pages of this 
volume, and found astounding and deeply occult descrip- 
tions of God, man, creation, the Solar and Astral systems, 
the mystery of force, life, being, the order of creation, in 
fact, eloquent, burning words, and thoughts almost beyond 
earthly comprehension for their sublimity, in every line. 
Hours swept on like seconds. The wonderful volume was 
glanced through, then others were opened. 

The same writer's mind glowed through all those plain, 
cheap books — books which should have been bound in 
rubies and sapphires — and the reader became at last almost 
paralyzed at the breadth of information, the intense insight 
into being, and the majesty with which some mind more 
than mortal had swept creation, and reduced its vast 
research into the holiest and most elevated language. 

Hours passed on. The early morning that had invited 
the student into that choice retreat now deepened into the 
gray mists of evening ; yet still the straining gaze roamed 
through the wonderful stack of shabby books, until it fell 
upon this passage : 



441 



" The great origiual, ever-existing, onmiscient, omnipoteut and onmipresent 
productive power, the Soul of all existence, is throned in a central sphere, the 
circumference of which is the boundless universe, and around which solar, sidereal 
and stellar systems revolve, in silent, majestic sublimity and harmony ! This 
power is what mankind call Deity, wh(jse attributes are love and wisdom, corres- 
ponding with the principles of male and female, positive and negative, sustaining 
and creative." 

At this point the master of the mansion, opening the 
library door, uttered an exclamation of surprise to find the 
guest whose presence he had missed for upwards of twelve 
hours, still at home. 

The next words spoken were, " Who is the author of 
these wonderful books ?" 

" Oh, those," replied the host, with seeming indifference, 
'' those books are all written by a poor shoemaker's boy 
of Poughkeepsie. That one " — pointing to the largest, 
the one which had first attracted the attention and awak- 
ened the astonishment of the reader — " was written, or 
rather spoken, when the lad was about sixteen years of 
age ; he was too ignorant to write it, he could not have 
even spelled the words." 

" In what school was he brought up, for heaven's sake ?" 

" Utter destitution." 

" Who taught him all these wonderful things ?" 

" God and the angels. He never had any human 
teachers. Of that I am a living witness." 

" But how in the name of all that is weird and wonder- 
ful were these volumes written "I" 

" Oh, at first they were taken down as he spoke them 
by a Scribe ; because I tell you, he who discoursed of suns, 
stars, systems, astronomy, geology, physiology, and every 
other known science, was too uneducated to be able to 
write down the words he spoke, and then, after graduating 
in the schools of — God alone knows where — but in no col- 
lege or seat of learning on this earth — he wrote the rest 
himself, ever}^ line of them." 



442 

" But if God and Angels taught him, is there no record 
as to how he learned 1" 

" Yes, one which scores of living men and women will 
testify to. He was magnetized as a little shoemaker's lad 
of the humblest and poorest condition, and then he be- 
came an independent clairvoyant." 

" Aye indeed ! Magnetism, and then Psychology, God's 
psychology poured into the soul, when it becomes clairvoy- 
ant, and ascends to the spheres of Deific knowledge ! Why, 
this is ancient magic ! The secret of all spiritualistic 
powers and possibilities ; yet, when did any ancient Magian, 
any mind however aspiring, vast, or illuminated, assume 
such a depth, height, and breadth of comprehension as 
this 1 Answer me my friend. Has such a paragon ever 
existed as the author of this library 7" 

" Swedenborg perhaps. You forget him." 

" But these revelations are more human, more compre- 
hensible and nearer to man's estate than Swedenborg's. 
They might be the breathings of Swedenborg'' s spirit^ cor- 
recting the shortcomings of his earthly career." 

" Perhaps they are. This man believes in spirits." 

" Can this wonder of the age exist and the world not 
know of it?" 

" Yes ; people know all about him, but they don't care 
for him now. He is living in great obscurity somewhere 
in Jersey I believe." 

" But the Spiritualists. — Surely those immense bodies of 
thinkers who have disclaimed the false assumptions of 
creeds and the unscientific absurdities of ecclesiastical dog- 
mas — do not those people so wonderfully taught of the 
spirit, accept him as their prophet, their leader, — their hea- 
ven-inspired teacher V 

" Hold, hold my friend ! you know not what you say. 
The Spiritualists are all '■individuals.^ They are their own 



443 

Gods, their own Prophets, leaders, and teachers; what! 
present any human leader, teacher, or Prophet to the 
great bulk of the American Spiritualists ! You will find 
you are treading on dangerous ground, and will soon be 
warned back with the phrases, ' we want no Popes, Cardi- 
nals, Bishops, or Priestly Leaders here.' " 

" But Leaders and Teachers they must have. Do they 
not sustain great mass meetings where the public gather 
together to hear their opinions discussed ?" 

" Aye, but each one presents his own opinion, and none 
but his own. Sometimes these opinions are as widely 
divergent as the heavens and the earth ; and sometimes 
not unlike in essence, light and darkness^ still their pride is 
to maintain ' a free platform,' and under this appellation, 
the Angels of darkness are as free to have their say as 
those of light." 

'■'■ But this is chaos, disorder, not Spiritism, much less the 
sweetness, grace, and dignity of this Harmonial Philoso- 
phy ! " 

" The time was, when Davis's revelations, startling ma- 
terialism out of its blank negations, and compelling atten- 
tion from the wonderful and unprecedented methods of 
their delivery, drew around him a large class of admiring- 
friends and elevated thinkers, who were not ashamed to 
call themselves after him, ' Harmonial Philosophers,' 
but in the revolutionary spirit of this great movement 
Spiritualism, thousands have rushed into its ranks, glad to 
escape from creeds, dogmas, and ecclesiastical despotism. 
The memory of this dethroned tja^anny is still too strong 
upon them to admit of any present attempts to organize 
a new religious system. The swing of the pendulum 
has carried the soul from despotism into license, and 
until the revolutionary elements of thought can subside 
into equilibrium, depend upon it even the amiable and un- 



444 

assuming ' harmonial philosopher's ' leadership cannot be 
tolerated." 

" But in the meantime were these stupendous revelations 
given*^ in vain 1 Surely so noble a philosophy, received 
through an inspiration so unmistakably divine, so free from 
human bias or mortal intervention, ought to commend it- 
self to every civilized nation of the present age !" 

" My friend, you forget the elements of which this gen- 
eration is composed. Setting aside the scientists who 
scoff out of notice every idea connected with spiritual ex- 
istence, or outside the known routine of science, who do 
you expect in Catholic and Protestant Europe to sympa- 
thize with the revelations of the Poughkeepsie Seer 1 
Some few there are in every country where these 
plain, black volumes have made their way, who regard 
them as we do. Many who even believe they are the 
voice of earth's Tutelary Angel, speaking from between the 
Cherubim and Seraphim of past and future ages, but 
they like us, must wait until the age is more receptive of 
these sublime truths. At the present day, the great 
majority of European religionists hold up their hands with 
holy horror at the name of A. J. Davis, and cry, ' Pantheist ! 
Heathen Philosopher ! — ^This is the man who denies the 
Trinity, disbelieves in the awful Jehovah with his great 
white throne. — This is the hard-hearted moralist who 
would take away our Saviour from us, deny us the conso- 
lation of the vicarious atonement, and compel us all to do 
personal penance for our sins, and even abandon them alto- 
gether ! This is he who calls God a Spiritual Sun, Jesus an 
amiable young man, creation an evolution, and flies in the 
face of Genesis and the thirty-nine articles !' " 

In after years, when the author had time and opportu- 
nity to study out the vast stores of spiritual thought and 
profound philosophy, displayed in the voluminous writings 



445 

of this great modern Prophet, the admiration they excited, 
determined him, if he ever more visited America, he would 
seek out this marvel of the age, even as the Disciples of 
classic Greece sat at the feet of her master spirits to learn 
wisdom. 

The time for the fulfillment of this cherished purpose 
came, and in company with an ardent Disciple of the Har- 
monial Philosophy from a distant land, the author com- 
menced his search. 

Few Spiritualists seemed to know even of the where- 
abouts of the Poughkeepsie Seer. Surely we thought he 
must be at the head of some great Church, Temple, Syna- 
gogue, a mechanic's institute at the least, or a popular lec- 
ture hall ; some place, where spiritually starved souls could 
feed upon the Divine revelations of nature as taught by one 
of her purest and most faithful interpreters ! But no ! the 
great Alchemist who had transmuted the Magic of early 
ages into the gold of spiritual science, the Seer, Philoso- 
pher, and greatest phenomenon of this or any age, had to be 
sought for in a little shop in an obscure street, where, 
without followers, disciples, admirers, and to judge from 
appearances with but very few customers, amidst his neat, 
well ordered collection of books, ranged on their shelves in 
curious little delicate curves, and tastefully adorned with 
illuminated mottoes, and Autumn leaves,— stood the great 
Seer, selling books for a livelihood. 

The placid mien and gentle tones of the unassuming 
salesman betrayed none of the pangs of grief, indignation 
and humiliation which two foreigners felt for him, as they 
made their silent purchase, with hearts too tull for utter- 
ance, and withdrew. 

" That man is nobler far in the quiet, cheerful dignitj- 
with which he accommodates himself to the sordid necessi- 
ties of a petty trade, than when he stood as the interpreter 



446 

of Angels, dictating, ' Nature's Divine Revelations.'" Thus 
spoke one of the deeply moved visitors, 

" The age is not worthy of hira ; he lives a century 
before his time," rejoined the othef. 

" Aye ! but his works will live after him. The trutiis he 
reveals are eternal, and the revelator will yet become immor- 
tal," was the reply. Even so. Time, the touch-stone of 
truth, will do justice to him — to all ; and so, Andrew 
Jackson Davis, farewell! But, whilst the "Magic Staff" 
— Penetralia, Stellar Key, Arabula, Harmonia and Divine 
Revelations — are in print, or even in memory, never let 
American, English, French, German, or " critic " of any 
other land, presume to say : Spiritism has no philosophy. In 
the volumes enumerated above, it has the best, broadest, 
holiest and yet most practical philosophy that was ever 
enunciated since God said : " Let there be Light, and there 
was Light !" 

We are not informed whether Mr. Davis ranks himself 
before the world as a Spiritist or not. Few of the brethren 
of that order seem to know or care much about him now ; 
but the mode in which his philosophy was produced, justi- 
fies a stranger's claim for him, to wit : that of all the 
children of the Spirit that have illuminated this great 
modern movement called Spiritism, one of the best, truest 
and most honorable of them all is he who, in deep obscur- 
ity, illustrates so thoroughly the proverb, " A Prophet is 
not without honor, save in his own country." 

Our sketch of Supermundane Spiritism would not be 
complete without this humble tribute to one who forms its 
noblest illustration — to one with whom the writer has 
never exchanged a word on earth, and in all human prob- 
ability never will, but who rejoices to believe that name, 
so coldly slipping out of human remembrance and appre- 
ciation now, will be enshrined in the hearts of unborn gen- 



447 

erations, and in the shining roll of immortality be held 
sacred as the Founder of a Divine and natural Harmonial 
Dispensation. 

In commenting on American and European Spiritism, 
we recognize no right to add items of history to the im- 
mense stores already extant, nor weary our readers with 
descriptions of phenomena which weekly and monthly 
periodicals have never failed to chronicle from the opening 
of the movement to this day. Deeming a work published 
under the peculiar limitations which herald forth this vol- 
ume will only render it an ephemera of the day, our clos- 
ing remarks will be addressed to those who must already be 
informed upon every point of the passing Spiritualistic 
movement. If they are not so, the works of Robert Dale 
Owen, Judge Edmonds, Eppes Sargent, Eugene Crowell, 
but, above all, Emma Hardinge's inimitable " Twenty 
Years' History of Modern Spiritualism," will bring every 
student face to face with the entire details of all that has 
been effected by Spirits communicating to mortals on 
American soil. Here too, as in Europe, there are vast 
numbers of tracts being continually issued, representing 
all the various phases of the movement, besides many 
which do not belong to it, but which persons, who believe 
in its facts, availing themselves of its popularity, thrust 
before the public as Spiritualistic. 

Books of poems, novels, treatises, some with rare merit, 
others less than mediocre, flood the age from Spiritualistic 
sources. A great many newspapers and magazines have 
been published in the interests of this movement, lived 
their time, served their period of usefulness, and died out, 
others still maintain their hold upon the world's attention 
and command a full share of patronage. The oldest and 
best sustained — the '' Banner of Light," commenced in the 
earliest days of the American movement, and now occu- 



448 

pying the distinguished place of its leading organ, is in it- 
self a complete repertoire of all the astounding phenomena, 
passing events, and celebrated personages, who constitute 
the history of Spiritism. 

The more detailed sources of information thus indicated, 
it only remains for us to notice some of the principal char- 
acteristics of the modern movement. 

In America these are strikingly tinctured by the na- 
tional idiosyncrasies of the people, but the methods of sig- 
naling by spirit power arealike all over the world. They 
consist first, of the production of sounds by knocking ; 
table-tilting, lifting of heavy bodies, the transportation 
of small articles, such as fruits, flowers, jewels, etc., 
etc., through the air, and their production at points 
of distance from their scene of departure. The exe- 
cution of music by spirits playing upon instruments 
furnished by mortals, and still more rarely, music sung 
or played by spirits, without any visible means of its pro- 
duction. The voices of spirits are also heard clairaudi- 
ently and externally, sometimes uttering words only, at 
others, long addresses. Spirits display their hands, feet, 
faces, and sometimes the whole form " materialized " out 
of the emanations of the mediums and human beings sur- 
rounding them. In this tieshly masquerade the spirits 
dance, sing, disport with the persons around them, and 
perform like players on the mimic stage of a theatre. 
Other demonstrations consist of resisting fire, the extension 
of the body, also its elevation into the air, and floating 
about the apartment. Spirits also exhibit feats of strength, 
tying and untying their Media when bound with ropes, 
and executing just such sleight-of-hand tricks as are com- 
mon to jugglers. Many higher phases of spirit power are 
exhibited, such as trance speaking and writing ; Seership, 
or the power of seeing and describing spirits, or personat- 



449 

ing their peculiarities so as to be recognized ; also the im- 
pressions which the mind receives from spirits, to declare 
names and other signs of identity by which mortals can be 
assured their spirit friends are present. Many photogra- 
phic likenesses of Spirits are said to have been produced 
through Media, whilst others are impelled to draw por- 
traits of Spirits, or flowers and allegorical scenes, others to 
behold visions, prophetic, descriptive, or symbolical. 

Many are impelled to describe diseases, prescribe reme- 
dies, or effect cures by the laying on of hands. This 
movement has also brought to light a great many latent 
powers of the soul, which spring up under the sympathetic 
contagion of the time, and exhibit themselves in psycho- 
metric delineations of character by touch, clairvoyance, 
magnetic virtue and prophetic intuition. Another stril^- 
ing and curious phase is the frequent apparition of the 
spectre, or astral spirit, disengaged from the still living 
body, and manifesting its presence at a distance, with or 
without the consciousness of the subject. 

Now the great marvel and special interest which at- 
taches to all these manifestations of spirit power in the 
nineteenth century is their original spontaneity, and the 
fact that they have in most instances fallen upon the 
media through whom they are produced, without solicita- 
tion or any form of preparation. 

It is in this spontaneity, and the vast abundance of the 
phenomena, that the modern movement differs so widely 
from all preceding examples, where — except in rare cases 
— years of preparation, initiation, and magical processes 
have been required for the performance of occult works. 
Modern Spiritism also is more characteristic of human 
spirit agency than that of any other era. 

Up to the close of the last century, when the German 
and French magnetizers so widely popularized the prac- 



450 

tices of Me.'^inerism and the powers of Psychology, a belief 
prevailed that occult works were effected by Planetary, 
Elementary, and Tutelary Spirits chiefly, and that the ap- 
parition of deceased persons was rare and exceptional. 
The experiments of the magnetizers, and the cloud of wit- 
nesses who poured in through their subjects from the 
realms of spirit land, bringing indisputable proofs of their 
identity with the souls of deceased ancestors, completely 
reversed this opinion, and induced a prevalent belief that 
all manifestations of a spiritualistic character originated 
with the liberated souls of humanity. The author has, in 
previous sections, adduced sufficient reason for assuming a 
middle ground between these opinions ; and whilst there 
is abundant evidence to prove the constant interposition 
of human spirits in human affairs, and the identity of such 
spirits with a vast amount of the occult phenomena pro- 
duced in every age of the world, we may also rest assured 
that the realms of the Elementaries can and do exercise 
considerable influence upon humanity, especially in rela- 
tion to animal propensities and earthly things ; also that 
Planetary Spirits rule, guide and interpose in human 
destiny, and that Tutelary Spirits take charge of and 
govern nations, planets, and all bodies in space. — That all 
these spirits can be seen, communed with and invoked, is 
also sufficiently proved in the course of this work. 

When we consider the stupendous and revolutionary 
changes of opinion that this great Spiritual outpouring in- 
duces, we are driven to accept of three manifest conclu- 
sions ; the first is, that we cannot be too grateful for these 
demonstrations, nor too careful to sift them from all taint 
of human folly, impurity, hallucination or imposture. 

Next we should recognize it as our incumbent duty, even 
an urgent necessity, to preserve to ourselves and posterity, 
the high privileges of this beneficent and instructive inter- 



451 

course by studying its laws, and endeavoring scientifically 
to master its methods, so as to control the communion 
and be enabled to conduct it at pleasure. 

Next, it must strike every reasonable mind with indig- 
nation, to perceive that those who have assumed the high 
position of leaders either in science or ecclesiasticism, 
should so far abandon their trust as to permit the people to 
grope their way blindfold through the mists, obscurities, and 
difficulties of this vast outpouring, without lending their 
aid to solve its mysteries, proving its errors if it have any, 
conserving its truths if they exist, and demonstrating what- 
ever is true or false, valuable or pernicious in its action. 

It is an acknowledged axiom in logic, that abuse is no 
argument, ridicule no proof. And yet to these petty arms — 
pop-guns worthy only of pugnacious school-boys — have 
many of the most eminent scientists of the day descended, 
when compelled by the force of public opinion to deal with 
the subject of Spiritism. 

High ecclesiasticism has done worse, tor it has falsified 
the very basis of its own pretensions, the corner-stone of its 
authority being miracle. By denouncing the modern 
power or right to work what has been unscientifically 
termed " miracle," the Church has virtually undermined its 
own foundations and either proved itself impious enough 
" to fight against the living God," or hypocritical enough 
to maintain an institution founded upon myth and false- 
hood. 

' From these positions there is no escape, and though we 
have no intention in these brief remarks to wage war 
upon materialistic Science, or atheistic Ecclesiasticism, we 
point out the position to our readers to show them why 
they must rely on themselves, and cease to utter vain ap- 
peals to any human leaders to help them, or continue their 
humiliating!; efforts to convert great men who don't want to 
be converted. 



452 

Many very eminent scientists and excellent members of 
ecclesiastical bodies have — as individuals, not as official 
members of an organisation — taken hold of Spiritualism and 
hazarded name and place in its advocacy, but it must be 
obvious even to these illuminated thinkers, that the formulae 
of material science and the influences of credal faith have 
no connection with this great independent movement. 

The Scientist finds that a new set of laws, and those 
purely psychological, must be studied and obeyed, before 
he can make headway with Spiritism, and the Ecclesiastic 
continually proves that the Spirits do not respond to the 
invocations or exorcisms of Credal faiths, nor can the broad 
and un conservative revelations of Spiritism be accommo- 
dated to the narrow dogmas of sects. 

-it O 

Once again then we recommend the study and adoption 
of those principles which Spiritism itself discloses, and as 
these are in the strictest relations to good order, good 
morals, purity of life, and the spirit of universal brother- 
hood, we can do mankind no better service than to recom- 
mend a profound study both of the science and religion of 
Spiritism. 

To illustrate our meaning all the more forcibly, we will 
refer to the three aforesaid conclusions, which the study of 
Modern Spiritism, especially the American phase of the 
movement, compels the observer to come to : " We cannot 
be too grateful for these demonstrations, nor too careful to 
sift them from all taint of human folly, impurity, halluci- 
nation, or imposture." 

The author has taken the opportunity of making three 
visits to America, and that for the sole purpose of studying 
the spiritual manifestatins produced on her soil. 

On the last two occasions he has observed with more 
regret than surprise, a gradual but evident decadence in 
the general feeling of grateful appreciation which these 



453 

manifestations at first awakened. Some believers have 
become accustomed to what was at first an exciting won- 
der, and their curiosity satisfied, they need no more. 
Others have slackened in zeal because they have been 
disappointed in some special results they anticipated ; but 
a still larger number have withdrawn their public support 
from a movement where the taint of human folly and im- 
purity has become so evident as to brand every class of 
believers with the evil reputation fastened upon it b}^ the 
few. Hallucination and imposture too have prevailed to 
an alarming extent in the ranks of Spiritism, and these 
two last elements combining with the before mentioned 
causes, have shaken the faith of many, and repelled still 
more from this cause. 

It is as a corrective to the errors which so prominently 
force themselves into notice in connection with the first 
conclusion we draw, that we recommend a careful con- 
sideration of the second, namely : " That we should recog- 
nize it as our incumbent duty, even an urgent necessity, to 
preserve to ourselves and posterity the high privileges of 
this beneficent and instructive intercourse, by studying its 
laws, and endeavoring scientifically to master its methods, 
so as to control the communion, and be enabled to con- 
duct it at pleasure." 

On this point let it be remembered that all the magical 
arts and possibilities detailed in previous sections, are as 
open to mankind to-day as ever they were. Whether it 
be expedient to seek them or no, is not the question. We 
simply reiterate they are attainable, and with the lights 
of science we now enjoy, especially in our improved knowl- 
edge of magnetic, psychologic and physiological laws, they 
can be arrived at with far less severe probationary efi*orts, 
and with far milder methods of culture than those formerly 
exercised. 



454 

Superficial commentators on this subject, talk of the 
" lost art of magic," and describe as impossible achieve- 
ments for modern Europeans or Americans, the marvels 
enacted by Hindoo Fakeers, Egyptian Dervishes, and Ara- 
bian Santons, Mediaeval Ecstatics, Witches and Wizards ; 
but what marvels are much greater than the talking 
Spirits whose truth and spiritual origin were so clearly 
demonstrated at Koon's spirit roouis, even as early as 1850 1 
(vide Hardinge's Modern American Spiritualism.) What 
revelations of Zoroaster, Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato, or 
other great Philosophers of antiquity, have ever rendered 
a better code of morals, purer life, or more scientific de- 
monstration of creative order, and the mysteries of the 
Univercoel'um^ than the entranced Mystics, Swedenborg and 
Andrew Jackson Davis '] Does M. Jaccoliot give one 
single marvel of Hindoo Spiritism that has not transpired 
in equal force and greater abundance through the physical 
force Mediums of England and America? 

The Ecstatics of the Monasteries were canonized as 
Saints, because the stigmata appeared on their bodies ; 
their forms were elevated in the air, and they could read 
the thoughts of others, prophesy the future, etc., etc. 

It is not our purpose to detract from the value of the 
abundant literature now before a very unappreciative age, 
by repeating the authentic and well-attested narratives 
they contain. Any unprejudiced reader will find the mar- 
vels reported of the Asiatic Mystics equalled, and in many 
instances transcended by the illustrations of spirit-power 
given in Hardinge's " Modern American Spiritualism " 
al^ne. 

Let it suffice to say, that the stigmata of names, figures, 
dates, and signs, which have convinced thousands of dark- 
ened minds of the Soul's immortality, have appeared on 
the persons of numerous mediums of this century, and are 



455 

still appearing to those who care to seek for such evidence ; 
that the levitation of the body is a common occurrence ; 
the power of prophecy has been amply demonstrated in 
thousands of well attested instances. The capacity to re- 
sist fire has been abundantly shown. 

The vaticinations of the Greek and Roman Sybils never 
exceeded many of the eloquent utterances of unlettered 
boys and girls in the modern Spiritual movement, and if 
shameful imposture and very bad reputations had not in- 
tervened so frequently to destroy faith or even patience 
with the modern manifestations, they exceed in use, won- 
der, beauty, and number, a thousand fold, all the marvel- 
lous tales recited of Greek, Roman, Hindoo, Egyptian, 
Persian, Chaldean, or Hebrew Spiritism, that is, when the 
latter are sifted down to well proven narratives, Cabalistic 
sentences are translated into plain sense, and allegorical 
flights of fancy are reduced to actual fact. 

The failures of modern Spiritism, its degradation, lack 
of organic power, evil repute, and gradual but sure deca- 
dence, all proceed from the human side of the movement. 
It may be difficult, perhaps impossible, to repair the errors 
committed by a fast fading generation, but it is for us to 
lay the foundation of improved conditions, by dealing 
with the rising generation, and for this purpose, the wis- 
est course we can now pursue to show our devotion to the 
interests of truth, and our duty to posterity, would be to 
found a New " School of the Prophets." 

In these, young fresh susceptible organisms should be 
selected as Neophytes to fill a future order of Mediums, 
Priests, and Ministers. Their food should be plain and 
simple, their habits pure and orderly, their lives spotless, 
their morals regulated by the most exalted and dignified 
standards of truth, justice, piety, and goodness. They 
should be under the regulation of a company of holy 



456 

women, and scientific men. Good, pure-minded, healthful 
magnetizers should be received into fellowship with them, 
and one and all should be magnetized to ^determine who 
were operators, and who subjects. The first should be set 
apart as Physicians to the sick, and operators for raedium- 
istic and clairvoyant development. The second as Media, 
Prophets, and Ministers, 

As soon as the aforesaid powers were discovered, they 
should be classified and the magnetizations continued until 
the subjects felt impressed to discontinue them and stand 
alone. Periodical seances should be established, at which 
scientific order should strictly prevail. The floors of the 
circle room should be intersected with plateaus of glass, to 
prevent the escape of the magnetic fluid. The air should 
often be purified with streams of ozone ; the walls sur- 
rounded with graceful forms of art and well selected colors. 
Those destined to become Magnetizers or Physicians should 
sit in rooms well supplied with powerful magnets. Tender 
susceptible media should never commence their sittings 
without first holding the poles of a good electro-magnetic 
battery in their hands, closing their exercises in the same 
way. No drugs, narcotics, or stimulants should be used 
under any circumstances, but all other legitimate appeals 
to the senses should be put into requisition, the most poten- 
tial of which should be healthful exercises, bathing, the 
performance of exquisite music, and the sight of beautiful 
forms of art. 

Those sensitives manifesting tendencies towards clair- 
voyance should practice gazing steadily into the crystal or 
mirror. Those susceptible of psychometrical delineations, 
should practice their power, remembering that this, and all 
other Spiritual gifts ^ are as much the result of culture and 
exercise, as are the developments of muscular strength, or 
intellectual achievement. No seances should ever be at- 



1 t 



457 

tempted without a solemn preparatory invocation to good 
and wise Spirits, and to any Tutelary, Angelic Guardian, 
or Deific power, in which the Invocant places faith, and 
this not only for the purpose of stimulating the mind to 
aspiration and soliciting the presence and influence of the 
good and wise, but also for the purpose of banishing evil 
and mischievous spirits from interfering. The same cer- 
emonial of discharge or dismissal should be used on 
breaking up a seance, in fact we would recommend at 
least as much courtesy in the treatment of Angelic essences, 
as the usages of society demand for ordinary acquaint- 
ances. 

A " School of the Prophets" conducted on some such 
principles as we have thus briefly outlined, would certainly 
do as much for this generation as the mysteries and Tem- 
ple services of antiquity effected for the nations in which 
they were practiced — in a word — it would provide a class 
of duly qualified Magnetic Physicians, Prophets, Mediums, 
Clear Seers, and Spiritualistic persons, whose morals, char- 
acters, and gifts being cultured and superinduced into re- 
ligious and scientific methods, would fill the world with 
blessing and usefulness instead of as now, desecrating high 
and holy gifts to base and sordid purposes, or disgracing 
them with characteristics which we do not care to dwell 
upon in this volume. 

All the public exercises of Spiritualism should be con- 
ducted in decency and order. A general basis of principles 
should unite all persons who believe in Spiritual existence 
and Spiritual gifts, and well-qualified expounders of these 
subjects should be the officiating ministers. In these 
gatherings, as in the processes of scientific culture, the 
sweetest melodies, the noblest harmonies, the purest flowers 
and fragrance, and the most pleasing association of artistic 
sights with sounds should be employed. All that could 



458 

contribute to elevate, purify and exalt the Soul's noblest 
powers should be resorted to, as legitimate means of influ- 
ence, and nothing low, degrading, slang, or impure, should 
be associated with Spiritual ideas. 

In private families, the practice of heterogeneous, dis- 
orderly or idle gatherings to seek Spirit communion, should 
be sternly discountenanced. The whole subject has been 
shamefully secularized ; treated either as a common-place 
method of spending an idle hour ; sought for the mere pur- 
poses of curiosity, fun, fortune-telling, or marvel-seeking. 

If the theories propounded in this volume be correct, and 
spirits of various grades, from the very highest to the very 
lowest, hover around us, seeking to minister or pander to the 
motives which impel the seekers, or the characteristics of 
mind which pervade the assemblage, then what class of 
Spirits must inevitably attend nine-tenths of the spirit 
circles now in vogue, and what results of good, use, indi- 
vidual or collective elevation, can be expected to grow out 
of them ? In the present heterogeneous condition of hu- 
man society, we dare not recommend the endeavor to 
obtain personal communion with the spirit world to every 
individual. The merchant, trader, mechanic, operative, 
seamstress, shop-keepers and laborers, whose time must be 
nearly all consumed in the routine of perpetual drudgery, 
and whose over-taxed minds and bodies cannot be properly 
attuned to such exercises, should not attempt to deplete 
their systems, or risk the integrity of mental and physical 
balance, by seeking to culture Spiritualistic endowments. 

Spiritism, like every other calling, demands its votaries, 
its devotees, and its peculiarly-prepared ministers. Per- 
sons having time to devote to the culture of their gifts and 
steady enthusiasm to sustain them during their probation- 
ary training, are the only classes who should attempt to 
teach, preach, or tender service publicly as Mediums be- 



459 

tween the better world of Spirits, and the much-darkened 
world of poor humanity. 

Far be it from the author of these pages to discourage 
the sweet and loving practice of family circles, meeting- 
together in the pleasant and sacred seclusion of home, or 
the social relations of friendship, to invoke the dear house- 
hold deities who have passed on before, or who would be 
so certain to respond to the appeal of those whom they 
have best loved on earth. 

They will surely he there, those loving spirit friends ; aye, 
wherever two or three are gathered together in the name 
of the spirit, whatever spirit they summon will he there, be 
it God or the Adversary ; spirits of the heart's dearest 
affections, or goblins from the metal crypts of earth, which 
avarice would fain rob of its hidden treasures. In the 
meantime, in order to sytematize even these innocent home 
communings, good order and strict conformity to scientific 
principles should be observed. We are not now undertak- 
ing to lay down the exact methods in which each circle 
for development or communion should be conducted. We 
can only touch upon the generalities of the subject, and 
would recommend well-wishers to these great truths if 
they desire their rapid and orderly promotion, to abandon 
the childish and egotistical fear that now paralyzes them, 
lest some competent adviser or highly inspired person 
should assume leadership amongst them, and remember 
that to every organism there must be a head as well as 
organs, to every circumference a centre, and in every 
nation a governmental combination for the protection of 
the governed, no less than for the restraint of the lawless. 
Having disposed of this poor, envious phantom which so 
troubles the peace of some Spiritists, and convinced them- 
selves that it is not necessary that a well-qualified adept in 
spiritual things should require those whom he counsels to 



460 

place a triple crown on his head, kiss his slipper, and pro- 
nounce his dictum infallible — let Spiritists come together 
in reverent deliberation, and decide .what methods of 
scientific investigation they can or ought to pursue so as 
to evolve the basic principles upon which spirits commu- 
nicate. 

Let them appoint qualified persons to prepare reports 
and verify their opinions by successful experiments, and 
until such reports, conjoined with such experiments, be 
accepted by the sense, reason and convicted judgment of 
the deliberators, let the reports be peremptorily rejected, 
and the investigation continue, if it be necessary, from 
generation to generation, until results are achieved. But 
such a council, animated by such a spirit, would not have 
to wait long. Magnetism is the pabulum by which spirits 
communicate. Psychology the influence. These are the 
secret virtues of Magic, Witchcraft and Mediumship in 
every age, and human nature changes not. If the founders 
of home circles will carefully study out the rules briefly 
suggested as indications in forming a school for the educa- 
tion and training of Media, they will surely become, in part 
at least, successful enough to reward them for some time 
consumed, and some sacrifices consummated. 

If possible a room should be set apart, consecrated and 
held consecrated to spiritual science. 

No unholy thing should enter there, no unholy thoughts 
be invited. 

The circle should meet at least once, but better twice or 
thrice each week. None should enter there until they had 
fasted at least four hours previously, and assemble together 
with clean hands and clean hearts. Let them come as to 
a holy place ; and if neither vocal nor instrumental music 
of a sweet and harmonious character can be procured, a 
small but finely toned chime of bells, glass harmonica, or 



461 

good musical box should invariably be provided ; — thus the 
atmosphere will be arranged into harmonious strata, ac- 
cording to the suggestions upon music contained in a pre- 
vious Section. Let the chamber be adorned with all the 
little stores of beauty and pleasant forms possible. Flow- 
ers are sometimes injurious to media, their strong perfume 
causing too much excitement to the senses, but where 
ozone can be procured, it is well to pass streams through the 
air, and the use of the electro-magnetic battery held by 
two persons placed at each pole, the rest forming a chain, 
ever strengthens the force, and benefits all present. Ten 
minutes' use of this machine should open and close each 
seance. Also, we would enforce the same rule of opening 
with an invocation, and closing with a courteous discharge 
to the spirits, suggested above. Family gatherings might 
experiment with magnetization as before suggested, the 
strongest, healthiest and most worthy of the party being 
selected as the operator. Crystals and mirrors should be 
laid on the circle table, also writing materials and slates. 

A large circle beneath the table, sufficient to insulate all 
the sitters assembled, and prevent even their garments 
from touching the ground, should be formed of glass, and 
this would grep.tly conduce to aid the manifestations by 
preventing the too rapid efflux of vital force. 
I it should forever after be prohibited to sit in totally 
darkened apartments. Spirits come to earth in their own 
Astral light, and to this element material light is opposed ; 
still the unqualified abuses that have arisen from the prev- 
alence of total darkness at spiritual seances should induce 
every wise investigator to discountenance them utterly. 

The fact that many of the most stupendous evidences of 
spirit power have been given in semi-lighted apartments, 
should be a sufficient answer to those who plead for dark- 
ness as a necessary condition for strong demoListratu)ns; 



462 

besides, the wise and faithful investigator can better 
afford to dispense with strong demonstrations, than good 
morals, decency, or spiritual agency without human inter- 
ference. 

Let dark circles be abandoned to Elementary Spirits, in 
and out of earthly encasements, and the impostors will 
find much of their occupation gone. 

For more detailed instructions in this and all forms of 
spiritual culture, we commend a careful perusal and repe- 
rusal of these pages. Attempts should be made to elabo- 
rate the many suggestions it contains, by the aid of a 
council selected from experienced media and philosophic 
thinkers, — but whilst the aim in view should be to perfect 
those methods by which Spiritism can be organized into a 
religion and cultivated as a science, both Church and Ly- 
ceum should be left free to expand in every direction, open 
to new light, new conditions of society, and the progress 
of human opinion. Basic principles should be sought for 
and laid down as fundamental rules from which there can 
be no departure ; powers of grow th and advancement should 
be just as liberally provided for, ever remembering that 
mind grows, but writings do not, and that whilst the Uni- 
verse is a stupendous organism whose centre — the grand 
man — the Spiritual Sun — the Unknown and Unknowable 
— changes not, — the manifestations of his infinity, his va- 
riousness, his beauty, and goodness, are outwrought in eter- 
nal series of changes. Light and Heat, — Truth and Love, 
are .eternal and unchanging principles. Their manifest- 
ations in created being are infinite. All are tending 
outward from a grand cential heart to an illimitable cir- 
cumference, yet all are held in the gravitating arms of 
immutable law ; all are moved in the expanding grooves 
of inevitable progress, — and all are sent forth on Sun-like 
paths of ascending glory to model after God. Study him. 



463 



honor him, glorify him in thyself. Thou canst not mis- 
understand or fail to know him. In Heaven, in the bound- 
less Universe, he is the Macrocosm, the infinitely large ; 
on earth and in thyself. He is the Microcosm, the infinitely 
little. In the understanding of the mystery of God lies all 
the secret potency of Art Magic. 

In the apprehension of his scheme, his glorious harp of 
creation, on which his master hand is striking tones from 
the lowest bass to the highest treble ; you hear the majes- 
tic symphony whose notes are suns, systems, worlds, earth, 
men ; —Mundane, Sub-Mundane, and Super-Mundane Spir- 
itism. 




465 



EPILOGUE TO THE DRAMA OF ART MAGIC. 



Some readers there be whose chief aim is — unconsciously 
to themselves perhaps — but greatly to the detriment of 
their higher natm^es — to search into what they read rather 
for the discovery of errors in orthography , and innovations 
upon conservative methods of typography, than for the 
elimination of ideas, or the enjoyment of soul intercourse 
with their author. To this class of readers our pages will 
doubtless present a fruitful soil for their special methods of 
criticism, and to such, we have no other apology to offer, 
than that contained in the few choice and pointed words 
of the Editors Preface. 

There is still another class whose methods of study have 
received the peculiarly significant soubriquet of, skimming. 
The chief delight of such persons is in an elaborately pre- 
pared Index, over the columns of which they rejoice to 
pore, industriously picking out just the particular words 
they have sympathy with, glancing at these, — for Index 
worshippers only glance, do not reacl^ — and abandoning the 
rest of the volume to more patient and capable students 
than themselves. 

The author s life-long experience with a great variety of 
readers, has induced him to look upon Index worshippers, 
as the most superficial of all book owners, and finally de- 
termined him not to spend time in writing for them at all. 
In the compilation of Historical, Legal, Statistical or Bio- 
graphical works, an Index is not only useful, but absolutely 
essential. In a book of ideas only, such an appendix offers 



466 

a premium to the unworthy habit of " skimming,'' and 
therefore, rejecting the courteous offer of our patient and 
untiring Editor, to satisfy the hypercritical, by the addition 
of an Index, we submit the foregoing pages for study, — 
study which cannot master the ideas presented in one su- 
perficial reading, much less in Index skimmings. 

We ask a careful perusal and reperusal of these pages, 
not for their literary merit, nor the exactitude of their 
methods, but for the sake of the high themes discussed, 
and the weighty subjects which fill up each column. When 
our readers have bestowed thus much study upon the vol- 
ume, they will not need an Index ; until they have done 
so, we have written for them in vain. Neither have we 
followed the well-beaten track of custom, in giving a list of 
the authorities cited in this volume. Whenever possible 
we have given the names of such authors as have supplied 
us with felicitous^quotations ; but we feel no impulse to bur- 
den our work with the abomination of such signs as " vols.., 
vers.., chaps." etc., etc., any more than we recognize the pro- 
priety of harassing our readers by foot-notes, or refer- 
ences to literature, perhaps unattainable to all but special 
seekers into occult lore. And now that our work — not of 
apology, but of sturdy resistance to conventional habits in 
book-making — is done, what remains, save to tender ever- 
lasting thanks to our gentle, faithful and long-suffering 
Editor ; most kindly greetings to the brave " Banner of 
Light," the " Spiritual Scientist," " London Medium," and 
" Spiritualist," who have so generously and courteously 
sustained her, and a potential psychologic, heartfelt God- 
Speed to the noble five hundred who, in the face of scorn, 
contumely, ridicule and blatant ignorance, have dared to 
register their honored names as subscribers to Art Magic, 
four hundred, at least, of them paying their subscriptions 
before they were due, trusting gallantly to the good faith 



467 

and honesty of Emma Hardinge Britten that they t^hould 
not be robbed of their due, and the rest signifying their 
insight and recognition of the divine in humanity, with an 
absence of all sordid motive or fear of public opinion, 
which forever protests against the doctrines of " human 
depravity, original sin,'' or aught but the sublime truth that 
the word is made flesh, and dwells amongst men now and 
evermore ' 



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